Zimbabwe’s consulate in South Africa rolls out e-passports

Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau

ZIMBABWE’s consulate in South Africa said yesterday that it will start rolling out the e-passport processing facility in a phased approach from today.

In a public notice, Consul-General, Mr Eria Phiri, said they were now working on a preliminary first phase that included the training of consulate staff, which was concluded on June 15. He said a system test run will be done between June 18 and 21.

“This trial run period will be open to a limited number of clients, randomly chosen from the existing pool of clients visiting the consulate in Johannesburg for passport application under the outgoing system,” said the Consul-General.

“The process will help the consulate to gauge the level of the system’s responsiveness and effectiveness in a real world environment before the full roll out to the public.”

Mr Phiri said Phase 2 will include the full rollout and opening of the e-passport application process to all members of the public.

“Before the conclusion of the system test-trial period on 21 June, the Consulate will issue another public notice with information on the operationalisation of the e-passport centre to all members of the public,” he added.

The e-passport will be processed in compliance with Statutory Instrument 1 of 2024.

The cost of the ordinary passport shall be US$150 converted to South African rands on the basis of the previous week’s average USD/Rand exchange rate.

An additional US$20 shall be charged for every electronically readable passport application to obtain a quick response (QR) code under the same conversion rate.

“The e-passport requirements shall be; original birth certificate, original identification documents (ID) (metal or plastic or paper IDs are acceptable), passport needed if it is valid and not required if it expired. Original marriage certificate will be required for married women,” said Mr Phiri.

“The mode of payment shall be communicated to all participants on selection. It is also important for people to note that the consulate in Cape Town or in Johannesburg or the Embassy in Pretoria does not have agents who act on their behalf.”