By Isaac Salima:
The Department of Immigration and Citizen Services (Dics) has once again not specified when passport printing will resume in other regions of the country, apart from Lilongwe in the Central Region.
In March this year, the department announced the resumption of passport printing after services were suspended in February due to a system glitch.
Initially, the department informed Malawians that passport printing would begin in Lilongwe before gradually expanding to other regions.
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However, in a statement released Monday, the department failed to clarify when exactly the services will resume in the other regions.
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Signed by Dics spokesperson Wellington Chiponde, the statement says the department has initiated a full-scale exercise to clear outstanding passport applications submitted between January and June this year.
According to the statement, since printing resumed, a total of 24,714 passports have been issued as of June 30.
“To address challenges applicants face in accessing passport services, the department is decentralising passport service provision to all passport printing centres across the regions.
“The decentralisation will commence with the Blantyre office, followed by the Mzuzu office and conclude with the Mangochi office,” it says.
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The statement indicates that in the interim, all passport applications submitted from these centres are being processed in Lilongwe.
These sentiments mirror assurances given by the department when announcing the service resumption in March.
It notified the general public that the restoration of the e-passport issuance system was complete.
“This development means that the department’s e-passport issuance services have resumed and passport printing will gradually begin in Lilongwe this week, extending to other regions later,” Dics said.
Speaking during a visit to Immigration headquarters in Blantyre in April this year, Homeland Security Minister Ken Zikhale Ng’oma also assured the public that passport printing services would soon resume in the other regions.
At the time, Ng’oma mentioned a backlog of 35,000 passports awaiting printing but expressed optimism that it would be cleared.
