Passport backlog shoots to 300 000

Herald Reporter

THE Registrar General's Office has a backlog of 300 000 applications for passports and does not have resources to process them, Registrar General Mr Tobaiwa Mudede said yesterday.

As a result of the backlog, the central registry is issuing people who need to travel outside the country with Emergency Travel Documents but some countries such as New Zealand do not accept them.

"In some cases, we have to negotiate with embassies to accept ETDs. We also have to cater for students going to universities and colleges outside the country," he said.

Mr Mudede was giving oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Home Affairs on the challenges the central registry is facing.

He told the committee that there were certain issues that he could not tell the committee in the presence of the media. He, however, complained that people who were arrested for forging passports got bail from the courts and sometimes skipped the country, running away from prosecution.

Mr Mudede also said a significant number of people approaching his office for birth certificates and other national identity documents are not citizens of Zimbabwe although they live in this country.

He said the situation was more pronounced in farming communities around the country.

"Quite a number of people seeking documents are not citizens of this country and we have a problem.

"You go to the farms, you hear the same song, we are not getting birth certificates, check on them, they are aliens," said Mr Mudede.

Makokoba legislator Ms Thokozani Khupe (MDC) asked Mr Mudede what his department was doing with regards to members of staff who were rude to members of the public.

"I can't defend that one, the youngsters we are employing, we are having a problem. I had to get some of them dismissed. We do our best to be tough on them, but the new generation has no manners," he said.

Kambuzuma legislator Mr Willias Madzimure (MDC) wanted to know whether the RG's Office would fulfil its mandate of making identity documents available to people during election times.

"The answer is no. We have a problem of those who are turning 18 years and would need to be registered. There is a danger on that area and the respective authorities are aware," said Mr Mudede.

Mr Madzimure also sought to know why the RG's Office rushed to withdraw citizenship from people before firm reasons were established.

Mr Mudede said the Citizenship Act outlines that somebody with parents of foreign origin must renounce the citizenship but some people did not bother to renounce hence they faced problems when they applied for passports.

"I have no powers outside the law to strip anybody of citizenship," he said.

The High Court recently ordered the RG's Office to renew newspaper publisher Mr Trevor Ncube's passport saying he was a bonafide Zimbabwean citizen.

Mr Ncube had approached the court after the RG's Office declined to issue him with a new passport saying he had not renounced his Zambian citizenship by descent within the prescribed period.

Chairman of the committee, Bikita West legislator Cde Claudius Makova said the committee appreciated the problems faced by the department especially in view of the expected elections in 2008 if those were not postponed to 2010. He said national documents were important because without them, things become difficult.

This article was originally published in the Zimbabwe Herald, February 21, 2007.