Zimbabwean passports to be processed in 10 days

Zimbabweans will, as from next year, have only to wait for 10 days to get their passports, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The ministry says it was taking over the printing of passports thereby cutting waiting times. Passports are printed by Fidelity Printers at the moment.

Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi told the Sunday News in an interview that his ministry was going to assume printing of passports from Fidelity Printers once the programme was complete.

"We are now working on having our passports processed in-house, that is, within the Ministry of Home Affairs. We are currently not responsible for printing the passport booklets here. We now want the passport to be printed by us as a ministry," said Mohadi.

He said the move would see the production of passports being done in a more efficient way thereby reducing the number of waiting days in line with the dictates of the Zim Asset blueprint which impresses on the need by Government departments to move towards improving service efficiency.

He said they were working on automating their systems which would do away with queues for the passports, national identity cards and birth certificates that are synonymous with the RG's offices.

"We are not really saying it will be exactly 10 working days but we want our people to have their passports issued within the shortest period of time possible and the shorter the time the more efficient our department will be," he said.

"We will start the in-house printing by mid-2014 as we are working on all the logistical issues so that this is possible. I am sure everything will be sorted by next year," he said. Asked about the long queues that are a permanent feature at most registry offices in the country, Minister Mohadi said they were just a temporary feature.

"If you go, say to Harare registry offices early in the morning, you will see very long winding queues but those queues disappear by midday as people will have been assisted. They are not really an issue, they are temporary queues," he said.

Registry offices in the country are always characterised by very long queues that deter prospective passport, birth certificate and identity card holders from making attempts to get the important documents.

These long queues have seen a lot of corruption breeding at the RG's offices as desperate people try to facilitate the processing of their documents. People now believe that the delay in the processing of the travel documents was a deliberate ploy by RG officers meant to force people to part with their money as bribes for facilitating the process.

A source from the registry offices in Bulawayo said what was now common were touts who con prospective passport holders saying they could facilitate the process claiming they knew the officers when they did not.

"There is a new breed of conmen who patronise the area around Msitheli. They approach passport seekers as they enter the gate and tell them that they can be middlemen for them so that they make the process faster. They then demand a fee for their services and claim to have links inside who can make the process very fast and the moment you hand them some money they vanish," said the source.

He said those people swindled hundreds of people of their money but police raided them at the beginning of last month.