Passport anarchy

Weeks after the Immigration Department promised good tidings in passport processing following the hacking of the system, we went back to Lilongwe office to investigate the situation. We found chaos.

By Cathy Maulidi:

At around 8:30 on a sunny Thursday this week, we arrived at the Immigration Department offices in Lilongwe.

There, a large crowd had already started scrambling for their chance in hell.

The premises were teeming with people such that doors leading into the offices were chocked.

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Manning the main entrance were two officers, a male and female.

They had to use every sinew of their being to push out the surging and shoving and jostling desperate mass of people.

Those fighting to get into the offices had in their hands completed application forms and receipts showing they had paid.

Some of them told us the officials collect the forms at some point – a sign of some progress.

“They call out the names and get the forms. Some, including myself, have been coming here for some days but our names are not being called. So, we want to get inside to hand the forms directly to the chief passport officer,” said a passport applicant, Janatu Saidi from Nathenje, Lilongwe, as he groped for a foothold in the massed ranks.

Away from here, the clients’ shade and officials’ car park was bursting to the seams with people.

As this reporter moved away to behold the ruckus from a distance, one man accosted her. And he had no time for greetings.

“Ngati muli ndi form-tu nditha kukuthandizani ifike mkati kenako akuitanani. [If you have an application form, I can assist you taking it to the officials.]”

“Zingati [How much]?” this reporter asked.

“Bweretsani kaye form-yo zosavuta timvana [Just give me the form; we will discuss the rest later.]”

This was a middleman.

We pushed him how much we would pay. He charged K100,000 –which is double the amount the passport has been priced at.

We learnt middlemen are taking advantage of the crisis and people’s desperation.

“They have seen the opportunity to milk from anxious individuals. Some are paying for even collecting the form at the counter or downloading it from the Immigration website,” said one photographer at the site.

Some applicants said in a desperate attempt to get the passport, they have fallen victim to these middlemen whom they paid sums ranging between K100, 000 and K150, 000 but with zero or little progress on their passports.

“They keep lying to us, giving us false hopes that our passports will be done but nothing is moving.

“They go inside and come out but our passports are nowhere to be seen. We are tired,” said one applicant, Patrick Chamayide.

Another applicant said on camera that he has spent K150, 000 to bribe Immigration officials in a bid to get his passport done quickly.

“They should give us our passports or we will mention their names to ACB [Anti- Corruption Bureau],” he said.

Some of the applicants who applied for the passports from as far as 2022 and 2023 are yet to get the passports.

And they demanded that the Immigration Department look into their cases first before assisting new applicants.

“There is too much corruption happening here. Those of us who applied long ago are failing to get the passports. While those who have just applied days ago are getting the passports.

“The middlemen come to get them and they walk them into the offices where they are given the passports and they leave. Just like that. We are poor. We can’t afford the huge sums they are paying there and we are suffering outside here,” said another applicant, Serena Banda.

During our half-day stay at the office, we observed that the department has not recovered applicants’ data which were lost when the system got hacked in February.

These are going through the application process again.

“We have submitted the forms two times, others three times. And you come the following day and you are told that your form is missing. So imagine we are being told to redo this and we continue spending money on things that are not working,” said Chiko Philip.

We pushed our way through the narrow entrance into the Immigration office to present our findings to the officials.

During a 20-minute wait on a queue to the chief passport officer’s office, the line did not move an inch.

All we could see were some officers being followed by an applicant, jumping the queue.

“Who can we talk to here, who is in charge? We asked one officer who took us to the Regional Immigration Manager, Mark Chindozi, to whom we presented our findings.

He said he had no information on how many passports are being printed in a day.

He could not respond to the other issues we put to him. Instead, he took us to another office where we were welcomed by two officers.

One officer said: “You were outside there talking to people, we overheard you even calling people from far districts so that you should talk to them.

“Did you seek our permission before speaking to the people? So now you want to talk to us on what?”

When we explained what we wanted, the other officer, also in Immigration uniform, said: “Ah tingaotche manja, zimenezo afunseni a National PRO.”

In the office, there were some Indians and some individuals who looked well off and were sitting on the chairs.

Outside, back in the corridors, a man who looked not well to do, stopped the Regional Manager who was walking in the corridor with us to the chief passport officer.

The man started presenting his worries and three Immigration officers who were standing in the corridors started verbally attacking him.

“Mesa akuuzani kuti mupite panja mukadikire akuitanani? Ndiye mukuvuta zichani? Tapitani uko! Kodi tikukankheni? [Have you not been told to wait outside? Why are you causing problems? Go away. Do you want us to push you?]”

Then they came and removed him from the manager’s side.

When contacted, Immigration PRO Wellington Chiponde also could not immediately respond to how many passports the department is printing in a day

“Send me a questionnaire,” he said.

We did. These were our queries: number of passports being printed in a day, when printing of passport in the North and southern region is starting, what they are doing to deal with middleman who are contributing to the chaos and the inefficiencies and concerns around passport application forms.

He acknowledge receipt and promised to revert.

He never did.