Hwange Passport Office & E-Passport Bio-enrolment Commissioned

Hwange Passport Office and E-Passport Bio-enrolment centre were commissioned this Friday with Deputy Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Cde Ruth Mavhungu Mabhoyi saying people must be able to access national documents with ease.

The high demand for travel documents had prompted the government to decentralise issuing of such documents as it moves to improve service delivery. The Herald reports Mabhoyi as saying:

I am aware of the high demand for travel documents by our citizens. As a ministry, we have therefore taken a deliberate stance to improve service delivery through decentralisation of our services. This is in tandem with the New Dispensation’s policy on devolution and the National Development Strategy 1 whose key priorities, among others, is to bring services closer to the people and to facilitate ease of doing business.

It is worth noting that decentralisation of services is one of the programmes that has had the deepest and most far-reaching impact on the lives of our people. It empowers local communities, ensures accessibility of services and reduces the distance citizens travel to access services.

Mabhoyi added that Hwange was selected as the location for the district registry office due to its strategic position as a mining town and tourism district which is adjacent to Zimbabwe’s borders with Botswana and Zambia.

Mabhoyi reiterated the importance of accessing vital civil registration documents such as birth certificates, national identity cards and marriage certificates which she said were required in the passport application process as well as participation in national development activities.

The Hwange office is the second district registry after Chitungwiza to cater for e-passport services and plans are underway to open Murewa, Beitbridge and Zvishavane district registry offices this year.

The Hwange e-passport bio-enrolment centre was built through a build-own-operate-transfer partnership with Garsu Pausaulis, an Australian company.

The people of Hwange and surrounding areas used to travel to Lupane or Bulawayo for passport applications.

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