RIO DE JANEIRO, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian government announced Friday that it will resume passport issuance, a public service that was suspended a month ago due to lack of funds.
The Federal Police, which is responsible for issuing passports, said earlier Friday that it has received funds of 102.3 million reals (32.8 million U.S. dollars) to resume passport issuance, a service suspended on June 27 as the funds earmarked for the service this year was already used up.
The new funds is a result of "some reorganization of the federal budget," and was reportedly taken from a donation to the UN, according to local media.
The Brazilian Mint, which is responsible for not only the production of Brazil's money, but for passport production as well, said the issuance of the documents will be normalized in five weeks, which is the time they will need to process the 175,000 passports requested in the past weeks.
