With the collapse of the formal economy and the victimisation of vendors in all urban centres across the country, some enterprising youths are taking advantage of the inefficiency of the Registrar-General (RG)’s Office online passport application form downloading facility to eke out a living.
BY MOSES MATENGA
The ingenious youths have taken it upon themselves to assist desperate passport seekers for a fee. They are charging $5 to download the application form which is supposed to be for free, and exclusively provided by RG Tobaiwa Mudede’s office.
Investigations by NewsDay have shown that there is a group of youths who spend their day roaming in and around the Makombe Building which houses the Passport Offices in Harare identifying those with “problems” and offer a way of helping them out for a fee.
Observers say the group has links within the passport office and those in need are often referred to the “backyard” or “car offices” for assistance.
It emerged that most of the people who pretend to be airtime vendors are actually part of the syndicate that offers services, among them acquisition of online forms at a nearby flat.
A weeklong investigation managed to unravel that the cars parked at Makombe Building were for “entrepreneurs” involved in several businesses including photography, passport forms and other roles that allow for quicker assistance at the offices.
Others also illegally sell food from their vehicles.
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Generators are used outside the passport office by the youths who offer a wide range of services. Sheds have also been erected by the businesspeople.
While the website of the RG’s Office offers passport forms downloading facilities, it emerged that it is always suspiciously down and therefore no one is unable to access the forms.
Attempts by NewsDay to download the forms hit a brick wall while several other people who also made an attempt registered failures. But the young men at Klipford Court at the corner of Harare Street and Herbert Chitepo Avenue have access to the online form that they print for those in need for $5.
Though there has been a semblance of order and efficiency at the passport office, a significant improvement from the chaos of the last three or so years, some elements were still capitalising on the few hitches to “assist” and get the money.
Once an eyesore and the centre of corruption in the city, the passport office has of late become a trusted and “clean zone”, but in the midst of the sanity, a few elements have taken advantage of the poor photo quality of the machines in the offices and the failure to download forms on the Internet to make money from desperate passport seekers.
Reads the network once one attempts to download: “Application for Zimbabwe passport. To view this form you need: Internet Explorer and the latest version of Adobe Reader, please update your browser.”
It emerged, however, that even with a machine with all the required applications, it was impossible to download the forms. The enterprising youths, operating from Kipford Court opposite the RG’s Office, charge $5 to download the forms from their machine. A NewsDay crew visited the place recently in another attempt to get the form and gathered all processes required.
One needed only to give details required include date of birth, birth entry number, identity number, residential address, place of birth and other necessities for the form to be downloaded.
“If you don’t have all the details required, the form will not download,” said one of the men in the office this week.
“Just call the person you are collecting the form for and provide the details, then we print.”
Initially, assistance had been sought from an “airtime dealer” nearby who gladly took them to the room and introduced them to the person who later assisted them.
After being asked about how passport forms would be accessed, the “airtime dealer” said: “You can get them inside, but if you want the online version, I can take you where you can easily get them.” The news team was introduced to one of the people who run the place and taken to a flat.
A computer, a small desk and a few chairs were lined up in the flat. Usually the passport form is given for free and has to be downloaded for free, but due to the inefficiency of the RG’s Office online form application, the enterprising youths were now recording brisk business.
Several attempts to get a response from Mudede were fruitless as he was continuously unavailable.
