The Registrar General Clemence Masango said that no ordinary passports are being printed at the moment, with priority being given to emergency passports and for diasporans who applied for the documents in foreign currency.
Masango said this on Thursday during a tour of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services at Makombe Building in Harare. He said:
At the moment, the $53 passports are on the backlog and not being printed because their charges do not meet the current printing costs.
We are only printing urgent passports and these are only for those who need to travel urgently such as the sick who need medical attention out of the country or those who work outside like truck drivers, those who live outside Zimbabwe and were allowed to pay (passport) fees in foreign currency.
Masango’s remarks somewhat contradict what was said by the Minister for Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Kazembe Kazembe recently.
Kazembe said that the government has committed more resources to the Registrar-general’s department to increase the production of passports to 8 000 per day from the current 2 500 to clear the backlog.
But we are very much aware that at certain centres like Gwanda and Lupane and even Harare people are applying for ordinary passports and being given a date on which they are returning to top up with zwd253 to change the applications to urgent so that the passports get processed on and urgent basis and come out after a few weeks!!! Are you telling me you don’t know that is happening? Many who applied late last year are holdimg passports right now as a result of that process.
Its now a year and a half since since i applied for a passport and i havent received it yet .Its a pity how things are being run in this country how can Masango say $53 passports cant meet the costs of production .I paid for my passport when it was 1:1 with the dollar .This is too much how can someone wait that long for a passport this government needs to be serious .Cain Matema was singing the same song now its Kazembe Kazembe .These people are taking us for a ride hapana kana zviri kuitwa this is a shame running things pachiVendor .Useless people i am just fed up nechinyika chakadai.
why our GVT is full of confusion, it is peoples right to own travel documens not like what is happening to our nation now.Guys Is it difficult to run a nation if so leave it for others.We are plenty intellectuals here who can manage all this for the benefit of every citizen