A few weeks ago, The Daily Times reported that the passport printing system at the Department if Immigration and Citizenship Services had been hacked, after the paper was tipped off by officers privy to the issue.
The news came at a time Malawians were still struggling to access the all-important travel documents because of inefficiencies that had found the department a fertile home.
Nowhere else in the world do you find a department dealing with citizenship and immigration issues being so fraught with irregularities— because these are crucial national aspects which also have a bearing on security.
When The Daily Times first reported about the ‘hacking’ reports, there was a barrage of condemnation from some public officers, who accused the paper of peddling lies, until President Lazarus Chakwera confirmed the nefarious acts in Parliament.
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Well, there are several versions of the story, but what is very clear is that the system is out of the control of the Immigration Department and officers there are failing to print passports for Malawians desperately wanting to travel outside the country.
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It is a national tragedy.
Some unconfirmed reports indicate that an attempt to ‘grab’ the system from the supplier resulted in the department being locked out.
Such reports further claim that in fact what is being described as a ransom is a ‘normal’ payment that the holders of the system are demanding.
Whatever the case is, having a passport printing system out of the hands of the responsible State institution is a serious national security breach.
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Elsewhere, we would have seen heads rolling at the Immigration Department or leaders there resigning of their own volition after overseeing one of the biggest passport scandals in the country’s history.
But as has been the case in many departments, where things have been awfully going haywire for years, we all know nothing will happen to the incompetent and negligent people at the department.
Is has always been business as usual in Malawi.
Poor performers are always given another chance to augment their inefficiency—and probably remind us that that is exactly what we deserve.
So much evidence has come to the fore to show that there is a leadership deficiency at the Immigration Department.
The passport crisis was supposed to be the last nail in the leadership’s coffin.
But the laidback attention that is being given to it is as though we are not experiencing a national breach.
It appears authorities are undermining the momentousness of the matter.
They must realise that the security and ratings of our passports risk being under threat due to the fact that government is not in control of their printing system.
Whether Immigration officials, with the help of others, wanted to take full control of the system illegally, or a proper hacking indeed happened or the supplier is trying to tell the department how clueless and inefficient it can be, the truth is that thousands of Malawians are failing to access the travel documents.
There have been heartrending stories of some individuals failing to fly out of the country to access medical attention or missing life-changing scholarship opportunities because they do not have passports.
In the midst of the tragedy, another question pops up: Do security systems like that of passports printing not have backups, which can be triggered in events of breaches like what has occurred?
In the event that the problem is not rectified as soon as possible, what will happen to thousands of Malawians in desperate need of passports?
And why is it that there are incessant efficiency concerns with all systems that issue some kind of crucial identification in Malawi?
At the National Registration Bureau (NRB), there are problems with the issuance of identity (ID) cards; at the Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services, getting licences is not as straightforward as it should be.
For NRB, the national ID problem has far-reaching consequences. The Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) cannot allow someone without the document to register to vote.
The law is very clear on that, and Mec has refused to be party to efforts to breach it.
In other words, authorities should just fix the ID problems and allow every eligible Malawian to get the documents, instead of making ridiculous proposals on how the registration of voters can happen.
In the midst of all these problems, one thing should really stand out: We are not a serious country when it comes to critical services that can also impact national security.
