Reports from Harare indicate that the passport backlog has vanished, a few weeks after Minister Kazembe Kazembe ‘s visit to the passport offices in Harare.
A resident shared the following on Facebook :
Remember family we once made some noise about passports. The noise we made reached high offices and the Minister of Home Affairs himself paid a visit to Makombe building.
I can safely say, there are no more queues at the Passport office in Harare and Chitungwiza. There is swift service, when I visited the place sometime last week.
The whole process lasted less than an hour. It’s gliding from one office to another.
1. They are issuing EMERGENCY PASSPORTS ONLY. An emergency passport costs USD318 and it’s collected after 24 hours. Yes 24 hours your passport will be ready for collection.
2. They are issuing passports to any Zimbabwean citizen who wants it….. No questions asked or letters to justify your emergency. You can just walk in with your ID and birth certificate, fill in forms and then submit, all done within the same day.
3. They are allowing people to submit applications on behalf of relatives who are abroad ( Something which is supposed to be done online). The one in need of a passport just writes a letter authorizing, a relative to submit and collect a passport on their behalf.
4. Those who applied for ORDINARY passports around 2018 and havent received them. They said if you have money you can top up so that it’s out within 24 hours.
5. There is still a huge backlog on ORDINARY PASSPORTS. As of now they are issuing out for those who applied in 2018.
We appreciate the positive developments at the Passport office, we are still concerned with the high prices.
Not all of us can afford the USD 318, govt must at least start issuing USD200 passports and ordinary ones.
USD318 it’s discriminatory and unfair to poor Zimbabweans who want to acquire a passport.
