Remarkable improvement at Registry office

Maud Kwembeya (26), one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of vendors that sell their wares on the streets of Harare, was busy packing her wares when her cellphone indicated that she had received a text message.

At first, Kwembeya ignored the message, suspecting the source of the message to be her neighbour, whom she owed some money.

 

Sighing heavily, she gathered enough courage to read the text message and suddenly she was all smiles.

Screaming with joy, the ecstatic Kwembeya read out the message, much to the delight of her vending mates.

The text message was from the Registrar-General’s Office and it advised the mother of three that her passport, which she had applied for barely some four weeks earlier, was ready for collection.

. . . as Govt works on National Ports Authority

For many years, Kwembeya had hesitated to visit the Registrar-General’s offices in Harare to apply for a passport. This was despite the fact that she desperately needed the document as she intended to travel to South Africa to buy wares for resale in the country.

Kwembeya’s source of hesitation was the long queues that at one time were synonymous with the passport offices throughout the country.

But now the long winding queues, which had become a permanent feature in the past few years, are now a thing of the past. A recent visit to the passport office at Makombe Building in Harare revealed that the issuing of passports has returned to normalcy.

Order has finally been restored at the offices, where chaos once reigned supreme. Confusion was the order of the day as often drunk touts took over as self-appointed overseers of the premises, causing chaos in the process.

Business at the offices is now being conducted smoothly in an orderly manner without the jostling, pushing and shoving.

Gone are the days when there were chaotic scenes of queues that looked more like crowds and processes were mired in confusion.

When this reporter arrived at the passport office in Harare around 10am, the majority of those that were seeking passports had already been attended to.

Passport officials were showing passport seekers where to go in a friendly manner.

Directions to the various departments are clearly signposted and passport seekers can simply follow these directions.

In less than two hours, all the formalities for passport seekers were being done as the officials efficiently went about their work with zeal and determination.

And in less than an hour, those who had came to collect their passports had been served.

The majority of the people said they were surprised to find that there were neither any queues nor any jostling.

Aaron Momberume from Kuwadzana said he had tried to apply for a passport twice in 2008 before giving up.

“The queues were just too long. I came here twice, failed to get the passport before I shelved the idea of getting the vital document,” Momberume said.

Momberume said that he recently learnt from his friends that everything was running smoothly at the passport office.

“At first I couldn’t believe it. I was, however, pleasantly surprised when I came here and everything went smoothly. I was overjoyed when I received the text message informing me that my passport was ready for collection,” a beaming Momberume said.

Alice Magwaza spoke glowingly about the conduct of officials at the passport office.

“In the past, getting a passport was more difficult than getting a university degree. Three years ago, I slept outside the passport offices gates on a number of occasions but still failed to get the document. There is a marked improvement and I was also treated with respect,” Magwaza said.

In the past, there was a backlog in the passport-printing section which was attributed to the shortage of passport booklets.

Officials from the passport office are reportedly working extra hours, even during weekends, as they seek to clear the backlog.

Efforts to get a comment from Mr Tobaiwa Mudede, the Registrar-General, on where he got the magic wand to change the fortunes at his offices were fruitless.

Last year, Mr Mudede told Parliament that his office was producing 3 000 passports every day, up from 1 936 in 2012.

Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset), the nation’s economic blueprint, seeks to, among other things, eliminate queues at the passport offices and ensure that people get travel documents in less than 10 days.