By Isaac Salima:
Malawians continue to struggle to get passports since the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services announced suspension of issuance of the same.
According to the Ministry of Homeland Security, the department is failing to access the passports from suppliers because of forex problems.
The country has been facing challenges in the printing and issuing of passports following the termination of a contract with supplier Techno Brain Global.
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Due to low stock of booklets, the Immigration Department announced, in March this year, that it had suspended the issuance of the passport and collection of application fees in Blantyre, Mangochi, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.
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Monday, we visited the department’s headquarters in Blantyre, where we observed that people have not been issued with the document, and that the department is only allowing new applications.
“I applied for the passport in October last year but it is not ready. I have been coming here since then but I am always told to come again. It is unfortunate because this is affecting my business plans,” said one of the people, who refused to be identified.
Another woman from Phalombe, who said she wants to follow her husband to South Africa, said she has been spending money on visits to the department.
“I spend almost K10,000 on every trip to this office. I have been spending the money since September last year. I was here last week and was told to come back today but I have also been told to continue waiting. This is not on,” said the woman.
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Some of the people seemed to have no answers to what is causing the problem.
The department’s director general Charles Kalumo is on record to have told the media, in March this year, that Techno Brain will supply 240,000 passport booklets.
But when contacted Monday to shed light on the issue, Kalumo asked for a physical meeting.
“Come to my office,” he said.
However, Homeland Security Minister Ken Zikhale Ng’oma said the problem will be solved shortly.
“We are working on the issue. We had some issues, which we are concluding now, with Techno Brain. As you are aware, we terminated our contract with Techno Brain; they were supposed to supply some booklets before we parted ways and, so, because of forex shortage, we have been failing to pay them but we are in talks with the Reserve Bank of Malawi to assist us,” Ng’oma said.
However, according to Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Security Chairperson Ralph Jooma, this is contrary to what officials from the department told them when they appeared before their committee.
“They told us that they had enough stock. We should also appreciate that the backlog was just too much such that they needed to clear it. We will ask them,” Jooma said.
