Zikhale, take responsibility

For close to a year now, Malawians have been struggling to get passports. The Department of Immigration has been saying one thing after another but with no much joy.

It has been a year of one lie after the other, blame game and in some cases just silence and confusion because there is no information from the authorities.

Well, on Thursday Minister of Homeland Security Ken Zikhale Ng’oma was at the Immigration Headquarters in Blantyre where he said he wanted to appreciate the problem the officials are facing which is causing delays in printing of passports.

As expected, there was a huge crowd that had convened at the Immigration in an attempt to get their passports which some of them applied a year ago.

The gesture by the minister must be applauded but it is the lie he told that must be condemned. It seems Zikhale, and by extension the President, are more worried about their personal image than the bigger problem at hand.

In his words, “the President does not print passports.” This is one of the most unfortunate statements I have heard from a Cabinet minister who by all means should have been more reassuring and taking responsibility for what is happening at the Immigration Department because the buck stops at him and the President.

It is strange that now Zikhale wants to point fingers at someone else when not long ago, he and indeed the entire government machinery went town with the “Chakwera delivers” mantra, claiming the system which was hacked, had been fully fixed.

Blame game, failure to take responsibility and sending contradicting information is what has gotten us here. Government has been quite stingy with the truth on what is wrong at Immigration department. Instead of being forthright with correct information, the government has been trying hard to shift blame to someone else when this whole mess was created by them and it is their responsibility to fix it.

The buck stops at leadership, from top to bottom, there is no running away from responsibility. Many Malawians have had their dreams shattered because of the mess at the Immigration department. The least the government can do is tell the truth and not point fingers at others.