Passport woes cripple dreams

By 6.30am yesterday, Kambani Jackson was already at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services office in Lilongwe beaming with hope that he would make headway in his bid to get a passport.

He badly needs the document to travel to either of Malawi’s neighbouring countries to search for employment.

But by midday, his hopes had faded considerably as, after hours of waiting, he realised he was still far from his goal.

The young man is one of scores in the parking space outside the Immigration offices hoping to get passports.

Said Jackson: “Other applicants have paid a fee [kick-backs] to fast-track their passport processing, but I did not pay because the person did not tell me what service I was to pay for. I was informed that the form is free. Why should I pay extra money?”

About 50 metres from him, Daniel Mtekesula was waiting to have his picture taken despite arriving at the premises after 10am.

How did Mtekesula get ahead of Jackson? It emerged that he was one of those who paid K1 500 “processing fee” to get an application form.

This is a testament to how the desperate applicants are resorting to kickbacks to address bottlenecks created by a system fraught with inefficiencies.

Jackson’s story is not unique. Countless other Malawians, from aspiring entrepreneurs to seasoned cross-border traders, are enduring a bureaucratic nightmare when seeking passports.

The dream of expanding a business, attending a conference, studying or simply visiting family abroad goes up in smoke in the red tape and interminable delays.

Take Hassan Rajabu, a small-scale trader from Machinga District. He diligently paid the required  K50 000 fee for an ordinary passport in May with a promise of a 10-day turnaround.

But a month and three days later, he is still waiting. He has made multiple trips from his home in Area 36 Township, Lilongwe to the Immigration office. Each of the trips is a costly gamble on the chance that his name might be called.

“When I calculate the cost right now, it is much higher than I intended,” lamentsRajabu. “I have been travelling from Area 36 to the immigration offices every day, but each time I come, the immigration officers do not call out my name.”

Besides the passport fee, transport and meals, he paid an additional K3 000, comprising K2 000 for the picture and K1 000 for the form. No receipts were issued for both transactions. Meanwhile, his small business is floundering because he cannot travel to Zambia to import second-hand clothes.

Peace Banda from Thyolo in the Southern Region, another small-scale trader, embodies the economic stagnation this inefficiency fosters. His entrepreneurial spirit is stifled by the very system meant to facilitate growth.

With a business yearning to expand, he is left in limbo, unable to access the opportunities a passport unlocks.

Said Banda: “It is not just the lost opportunities abroad,I have also sacrificed my business. One has to set aside the whole day to process the passport here. If you are coming here, it means you will not work or run a business.”

Minister of Homeland Security Ken ZikhaleNg’oma is on record as having said that the department was printing 500 passport booklets per day, which means it would take about two months to clear the backlog of 35 000 applications as of April this year.

Efforts to seek responses from the Immigration Office on what is causing the chaos in the passport issuance were futile, as our calls and messages went unanswered.

The bottlenecks in processing passports date back to December 2021 when Attorney General Thabo Chakaka-Nyirenda cancelled a $60.8 million (about K103.3 billion) Techno Brain contract due to alleged poor handling of the contract by the former governing Democratic Progressive Party administration.

He said the contract was fraught with irregularities and he wondered how controlling officers went ahead to sign it.

But in 2023, government re-engaged Techno Brain on a temporary basis as it sought to find a replacement. However, in February this year the Immigration Department suspended issuance of the passports due to a system failure.

In April this year, the government engaged E-Tech Systems, a Malawian firm, as the new passport system supplier to address the crisis at Immigration.

The award of the contract raised eyebrows with the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority later indicating that it did not handle the transaction.