Bulawayo– Foreign currency shortages are stalling progress and production in the Registrar General’s (RG) office which is experiencing a backlog of over 166 000 passports, RG Clemence Masango has revealed.
Addressing journalists in the city on Wednesday, RG Masango said his office is failing to import passport materials such as thread, paper and ink.
He added that the backlog is increasing each day because they are receiving an average of 2 000 applications on a daily basis.
“We have a capacity to produce about 3 000 passports daily but given the current challenges we are failing to keep up. All passport materials, threads, ink and stationery is sourced from outside the country and like any Government department, we have to rely on forex allocations which are highly competitive,” he said.
The Registrar went on to reveal that some traveling documents which await processing, date far back as 1 May meaning that his office has only managed to attend to applications that came in during the first four months of the year.
“We are doing our very best to produce passports and with the backlog from May, it means we have to produce 166 500 passports. The Passport Office has just cleared April applications and we have started working on those that came in May,” he said.
Masango also conceded that staff shortages are contributing to his office’s sluggish performance adding that the government was in the move to set up new Registry offices in Magwegwe and Cowdray Park to carter for Bulawayo applicants.
Normally, a $53 passport takes not more than four weeks to be released but currently some applicants have been waiting for over 8 months to get theirs.
The now laborious and frustrating process of acquiring a passport has seen some Passport Office officials requesting for bribes from applicants to speed up their attainment of the traveling document.
RG Masango however said his office was in the process of combating corruption activities by branding it’s staff and called on members of the public to report anyone requesting for a bribe.
“We are also working on uniforms and tags so that people can easily identify our staff. We will also introduce online passport applications to reduce interactions between our staff and members of the public,” he revealed.
The RG said government is also unable to produce Emergency Travelling Documents (EDTs) at the moment.
Foreign currency shortages has seen Zimbabwe plunge into deeper cash crisis, basic commodity shortages and hyperinflation. Some economists have attributed this crisis to the ‘highly corrupt ZANU PF government’ which they accuse of externalising forex in illicit graft activities.
