BY RUTENDO MATANHIKE
The Registrar-General (RG) Clemence Masango has received passport production supplies and a printer, a development that is set to ease the current shortage of the travel document, with 340 000 citizens already on the waiting list.
Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage minister Cain Mathema told journalists during a tour of the Harare Passport Offices yesterday that US$3 million had been paid to suppliers of passport consumables.
“Following the signing of a payment plan on June 17, 2019 with the suppliers of consumables to deal with the US$7 million that the department (passport production) owed, treasury has so far made the following payments, June 20 — US$1 million, June 26 — US$1 million and July 24 — US$1 million. This development has since unlocked the supply of both identity documents and passport production consumables,” Mathema said.
He said government had initiated a plan with one of the major suppliers to start buying directly from them instead of initiating a third party in the business transactions.
Mathema said the development would see the production of more passports per day as opposed to the production of only 60 documents per day.
“At the moment, the department has only 2 000 passport consumables and has for some time been issuing just 60 passports per day, only to unavoidable urgent cases and to avert total shutdown,” he said.
The RG’s office received a printer with a capacity to produce 1 000 passports per day, 50 000 identity consumables and 50 000 passport consumables.
