45 000 e-passports issued in December in Zimbabwe

MORE than 45 000 applicants were issued with passports from December 1 to last Friday, as most people sought to beat tomorrow's deadline, when the cost of obtaining the travel document goes up.

As of January 1, 2024, the fee for ordinary passports will rise from US$120 to US$150. At the same time, the fee for emergency passports issued within two working days will increase from US$200 to US$250.

The Civil Registry Department traditionally records its highest number of applications in December, when Diasporans use the holiday period to get new documents.

However, this year's numbers soared due to the bid to beat the deadline.

The department has since extended working hours.

Official statistics indicate that 92 313 Zimbabweans applied for e-passports from December 1 to December 29 this year.

The Civil Registry Department's Registrar-General (RG), Mr Henry Machiri, said the unusually long queues were caused by the imminent new fees.

"Legally, from January 1, the new fee becomes effective and the old fee will no longer apply, so this is the reason you also see quite many people in queues during this time," he said.

"Normally, we get more people during the Christmas holiday because we have citizens in the diaspora who use the holidays to also get an opportunity to apply for new passports."

The RG said his department has enough raw materials to cater for every applicant despite the upsurge in applications.

"Let me also assure the nation that, despite the rise in the number of applications we are receiving, we do have enough consumables to make sure that those who are applying for their passports are getting them on time. For the ordinary passport, it is (a maximum of) seven days and for the urgent passport, it is within 48 hours; that is, two days," said Mr Machiri.

Old passports, he added, are still valid until their expiry date and will not be phased out soon.

"The machine-readable passport is still a valid document. We understand people have been going around saying that it will expire after two years, which is not true.

"The electronic passport is not yet mandatory. Yes, it is an advantage for Zimbabwe, as we have done, to go on the electronic passport, but our citizens who are still using the machine-readable passport should know the old passport will expire according to the validity date written in the passport," he said.

Those who applied for passports at the registry office in Harare last week said they were impressed by the efficiency of officers who attended to them.

Mr Norman Dzeka, a South Africa-based Zimbabwean businessman, said he had received his passport five days after he had applied for it, which was two days earlier than the set seven-day time frame.

"The team here is very efficient; it took me less than the expected days to collect my passport. I need a new one because I travel from Harare to South Africa a lot and the old one was running out of pages," he said.

Another applicant, Ms Anesu Madeyu, said: "I don't intend to travel anytime soon, but I just thought I should have my vital documents in place in case something comes up . . ."

At the beginning of the month, the Civil Registry Department extended working hours at passport offices from 7am to 7pm during weekdays and 8am to 3pm on Saturdays.

Presenting the 2024 National Budget in November, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube initially proposed to increase the fee for an ordinary passport to US$200, but the figure was later revised to US$150 after debate in Parliament.