Home Affairs Minister, Kazembe Kazembe says government will soon introduce a system that will enable online application of passports.
Speaking at a Zanu PF Provincial Coordination Committee meeting on Saturday, Minister Kazembe Kazembe, who is also the Zanu PF Mashonaland Central provincial chairperson, said the system will enable people to apply for passports and make appointment with the Registrar General’s Office online.
Minister Kazembe said the mobile national identification card registration has already been set up.
“There are three stages involved in passport production and the first stage is the creation of the booklet. We have a machine in the country which can manufacture 8 000 books per day.
“Fidelity Printers has another machine which can produce 8 400 booklets per day. We don’t have challenges at this stage and we have the capacity to print three million booklets.”
The second stage involves personalisation of the passport where personal data and pictures are embedded on the passport. This process requires a specialised printer which can print 2 000 passports per day.”
Minister Kazembe said passport covers and consumables were imported and a passport had about eight security features, which are done by the specialised printer.
The third stage in passports production is validation of the passport and quality control.
“The first solution done by Government is to buy additional machinery to increase capacity to match demand,
“This was approved by Cabinet and Treasury has released funds for the procurement of the machinery.”
Zimbabwean passports had been under a terrible backlog with some of the passports applied in 2018 still not ready for collection.
“Shifts have been introduced at the RG’s Office to ensure the backlog was reduced,” Minister Kazembe said.
Minister Kazembe made headlines last week when he went undercover to the Registrar General’s office and caught a tout who coaxed Minister Kazembe for a US$30 bribe to jump the queue.
