The Bulawayo Provincial Registry Department says it is prepared to cater for an expected increase in the number of clients during the festive season as people out of the country return home in large numbers seeking to process their documentation while some process for their children.
During school and December holidays, officials at the provincial registry office say they witness an increase in clients from a daily average of about 200 to more than 800.
On Thursday last week, the Central Registry Department took journalists on a tour of the facility.
Provincial Registrar Jane Peters said they will be drawing staff from other stations within the province to beef up the e-passport processing centre. She was quoted by The Sunday News as saying:
We are beefing up our enrollment section (where e-passports are processed) so that once demand is higher, we have more people who are serving them. We will be taking from other sections.
Here in Bulawayo, we have our district registry and sub-offices, as such where there is a need we pull out someone and we deploy here to beef up so that things remain normal.
We no longer get so much congestion as a provincial office because we are now sharing the clients with others, like we have got Lupane and Hwange in Matabeleland North which means that part is taken care of.
In Matabeleland South we have Gwanda and Beitbridge. As such for now we only talk of clearing our clients on time. Decentralisation has helped a lot.
Peters discouraged members of the public from engaging touts whom she said have no link with registry officials. She said:
As the person in charge of the province, I have no power over what happens outside, there are law enforcement agents who are responsible for what happens outside.
What we have done is that we have requested the Zimbabwe Republic Police through the Bulawayo Central Police Station to provide us with officers daily that are going to be dismissing those people from outside.
We do not encourage our clients to talk to people outside or to seek services outside the yard.
Where we can they are always chased away, so that they do not entertain our clients outside.
Peters also said that since the inception of the e-passport, the department no longer has backlogs. She said:
These days we do not have backlogs at all. We serve our clients and once they are out of the bio-enrollment side, they are told to wait for a message and after seven days they receive it inviting them to come and collect their document.
More: Pindula News
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