Passport woes over?

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services yesterday claimed it had completed restoring the e-passport issuance system, but was cryptic on when it would start printing passports.

“This development means that the department’s e-passport issuance services have resumed and printing of passports will start gradually in Lilongwe this week and later on in the other regions,” said the department’s director general Charles Kalumo in a statement.

The press release came late afternoon yesterday amid fears that the agency would waltz past President Lazarus Chakwera’s 21-day deadline on resumption of passport printing.

President Chakwera, on February 21 2024, gave the department three weeks to find alternatives to the hacked passport issuance system.

The Nation reporters’ visit to Immigration offices in Mzuzu, Lilongwe and Blantyre revealed that passport production was still paralysed as officers were spotted idling on the lounge while the often hectic cubicles empty.

Speaking to our Mzuzu reporter yesterday, the department’s Northern Region deputy for administration Steve Chirambo said: “There is no activity so far as you can see from our hall downstairs. The demand for passports is still high though, especially from those intending to travel to South Africa. For more details speak to the department’s spokesperson.”

While addressing the press on February 27 2024, Minister of Homeland Security Ken Zikhale Ng’oma said the recovery process was at 90 percent.

But our source from the department’s head office in Blantyre revealed that the system was still down and all passport processing depended on its recovery.

“As I speak, the servers are still down. The system’s restoration in Blantyre will connect with the Central and Northern regions. That is when we can be sure that passport printing and processing will resume,” our source said.

Our visit to Lilongwe Immigration Department offices established that people are collecting travel documents and not passports.

A cross-border businessperson who buys merchandise from Zambia, but asked for anonymity, said he had been waiting for his travel document since Friday.

In his view, travel documents should not take too long to issue.

Another person, who collected his travel document yesterday, said he opted for the temporary document because passports are not being printed. The man is travelling to Tanzania.

Speaking in Parliament in Lilongwe during Questions to the President Session, Chakwera said “digital mercenaries” hacked into the system, forcing the Immigration Department to stop printing passports.

The President said the purported “digital mercenaries” were demanding ransom from government.

Chakwera described the hacking as a serious national security breach and said Malawi was not the first in the modern world to be a target of such cyber-attacks. However, he assured the House that “decisive steps to regain control of the situation” have been undertaken.

But civil society organisations faulted the President for treating the issue with laxity.

In an earlier interview, Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives executive director Sylvester Namiwa said heads should by now have rolled at the Immigration Department.

Consumers Association of Malawi executive director John Kapito vowed to hold Chakwera to account for directing that the Immigration Department must deal with the situation within three weeks.

The passport hiccups began after Attorney General (AG) Thabo Chakaka-Nyirenda ordered the cancellation of $60.8 million (about K103.3 billion at current rate) Techno Brain contract deal in December 2021, owing to alleged poor handling of the contract.

Techno Brain is demanding $1.7 million (about K2.8 billion) from the government. They signed the contract in March 2019 during the then governing Democratic Progressive Party administration.

Meanwhile, the department also revealed in yesterday’s statement that it has slashed the ordinary e-passport fee by 55 percent.

Reads in part the statement: “Government has reduced the e-passport fee for local Malawians from K90 000 to K50 000 for ordinary passports with waiting processing time of 10 days when the system is fully calibrated and operating optimally.”