An appropriate solution can be found

In 2015, I had the opportunity to visit a government press of an African country. That time, I was the government printer of Malawi. Weeks before the trip, I was required to send my personal details for clearance.

I had to be cleared because I was visiting a high security facility. This was in sharp contrast to the equivalent facility at home, which was open to anybody that wished to visit it. They needed strict security measures because of the nature of some of the work they were doing.

It was an eye opener for me to see the tight security conditions. Not one of the workers was exempted from the frequent security checks as they moved around the factory.

I observed a number of jobs at various stages of completion. One operation that caught my attention was the production of passports. Yes, that country’s government press was producing passports not just for their immigration department, but also for foreign jurisdictions.

At the time of writing this article, news of the Immigration Department’s failure to print passports for a number of weeks was in the air. This had naturally led to deep frustrations among passport seekers throughout the country. Many planned trips for purposes of trade, education, medical attention and socialising, among others, have had to be put on hold as those seeking their first passports were not able to have them, neither were those who wanted their expired ones renewed.

While conceding a measure of validity to the notion of involving the Immigration Department in passport production, this columnist contends that such a responsibility ought to be entrusted to those possessing a deeper comprehension of the intricacies of printing. Immigration officers, being neither versed in the nuances of software engineering nor proficient in the art of printing, would inevitably approach the task with a superficial grasp at best, given that it lies outside their purview. Their primary mandate resides in the acquisition and authentication of individuals’ personal data, a cornerstone in the adjudication of passport issuance. It is within this realm that their expertise should remain concentrated, as advocated by this commentator.

The Malawi Government Press, like their foreign counterparts, can be entrusted with the responsibility of printing passports. It would, however, be naïve to expect them to become competent within a few months. My proposal should, therefore, not be construed as an immediate solution to the current problem. Rather, it should be understood to be a way to prevent a recurrence of the same or similar, problem(s) in future.

It would take the government press at least one year, by this author’s estimation, for them to be adequately equipped for the security printing operations required for passport production. Specialised pieces of equipment would be needed to make security printing possible. Among these would be an intaglio press to be used for printing highly secure tactile effects similar to those on banknotes. Another indispensable piece of equipment would be a highly sophisticated digital press required for accepting and printing customised data, which is what passports depict. Although all passports are similar, no two passports are the same as each carries customised information. We have adequate local expertise to develop a robust package that can handle this aspect of security printing.

An indispensable addition to the inventory would entail a numbering machine of considerable efficacy, adept at inscribing serial numbers on the pages of the passports, while concomitantly perforating the same onto the folios via diminutive apertures of diverse configurations. Next, the establishment would need a machine that can assemble booklets.

The materials used in the passport production would have to be sourced from certified security materials suppliers. Special paper with appropriate security watermarks inserted during production, for example, would have to be used. Specialised ink with luminescence properties when exposed to infrared or ultraviolet radiation would also be needed. It can be done.

Life is full of challenges which require innovative solutions. Many times, solutions lie hidden within our own people or our own systems, but we spend a great deal of effort and resources trying to import them from external agents. The current passport saga is one of such challenges. We only need to search within our people to find the most appropriate solution.