This is part of the Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage
ministry’s move to e-governance structure where the Registrar General’s Office
would create an electronic database for citizens’ identity cards.
The country is battling to clear a passport backlog of 225
747 with some passports applied for as long ago as March 2019.
This has seen the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural
Heritage introducing double shifts that will work five days a week to clear the
backlog. The Registry is also facing challenges in production of plastic
national identity cards, due to a shortage of consumables.
This has seen Government giving priority to high school
pupils who need the IDs to sit for public examinations and people with selected
emergencies while the rest of applicants are getting “green copy” waiting
passes.
Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister
Monica Mutsvangwa said on Wednesday after the weekly Cabinet meeting that
Government was addressing access to documentation challenges.
Through partnership with the private sector, the country
would be able to produce four million passport units in a year.
“Cabinet considered and approved the proposed engagement of
a private partner in the implementation of a National Biometric Database for
the production of e-passports, national identity cards and birth certificates,”
she said.
“The partnership will increase the passport production
capacity to 4 million units per year, resulting not only in the clearance of
the current backlog, but also meeting the daily demand and enabling the
country’s embassies to issue passports to Zimbabwean citizens abroad.”
The Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Ministry has in the
past reiterated that it would soon employ information communication
technologies to improve services and reduce human interaction.
Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe
said employing technology will reduce corruption and human error in the
delivery of services. Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment