HORDES of people have resumed camping outside the capital’s passport offices, raising the spectre of coronavirus infections, as standard health protocols are not being strictly observed.
Since the resumption of issuance of passports and identity
cards, multitudes have been thronging the Registrar-General’s (RG) Makombe
Government Complex.
Opportunists such as vendors, street photographers and the
odd lot of those who live on the streets are also part of the melee.
The Sunday Mail Society saw a sea of people that had
gathered by the RG’s complex entrance by 6am on Thursday morning. Some of them
had joined the long, winding queue as early as 5am.
Pushing and shoving was inevitable, especially as the RG’s
Office is reportedly attending to only 100 people per day.
However, last week, the bulk of the people that turned up
were those who were hoodwinked by social media reports suggesting passport
applications from February 2019 had been processed and were ready for
collection.
The Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage has
since dismissed the reports as fake.
“The Civil Registry Department is working round the clock
to clear the passport backlog and any communication regarding the collection of
passports by applicants will be communicated through official communication
channels and through the Short Message Service (SMS) platform,” the ministry
said in a statement.
Mr Farai Chipaze of Chitungwiza was a disappointed man and
had no kind words for those who peddle fake news.
“What these people are doing is diabolic. When I saw the
fake news, I was in Mutare and I had to hurry back, only to be told that it was
a ruse. People should stop playing with our emotions,” a fuming Mr Chipaze, who
was milling around the premises, said.
Inside the premises, scores of people were at the enquiries
desk.
Passport officials, however, routinely advised people to
disperse as they were not attending to those applying for ordinary passports. Only
those that had made applications for emergency passports were being attended to
on that particular day.
Some enterprising youths who live on the streets have
turned to the old ways of sleeping outside the offices in order to sell off
their positions in the morning.
Some of the guards have also joined in the act of
soliciting for bribes from those that are desperate to be served on time
irrespective of their position in the queue. The Government recently gave the
nod for the resumption of issuance of civic documents.
Acting Registrar-General Mr Henry Machiri said they will
redouble efforts to ensure applicants comply with health guidelines and
protocols.
“With regards to
your observation in which you highlighted that those seeking passports are not
observing social-distancing measures, I have taken note of that and will act
accordingly. As you might be aware, we are not 100 percent open. We are,
however, working within the Covid-19 regulations,” Mr Machiri said.
He advised those that are seeking passports to be patient
and ignore some of the fake social media news.
“We currently have only 40 percent of our staff. As such,
our output is governed by the number of workers that we have. The sad thing is
that the high number of people that are coming to our offices are responding to
a fake social media posting.”
The Registrar-General’s Office is battling to clear the
huge passport backlog. Last year, the backlog was cut back by 20 percent,
taking advantage of a lull in new applications due to Covid-19 restrictions
that limited travel.
Before the lockdown, production of passports had been
seriously affected by increasing applications and foreign currency shortages.
Only 83 379 passports were processed during the first two months of the
lockdown period. Sunday Mail
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