Malawi Faced With A Passport Printing Crisis.

By Joseph Dumbula.

Malawi is facing one of the worst situations in printing passports, with now revelations that government intends to hire a new passport booklet supplier in order for passport production to resume.

It has emerged in the last few weeks that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship is failing to access the passports from suppliers because of forex problems.

Further, Pan Africa Visions understands that the production interruptions arose after Attorney General Thabo Chakaka-Nyirenda cancelled the $60.8 million (about K103.3 billion) Techno Brain contract in December 2021 over alleged poor handling of the contract by the previous administration which was led by former President Peter Mutharika.

The department has been grappling with having to do with low stock of booklets, the Immigration Department announced, a situation that subtly led to the suspension of the issuance of the passport and collection of application fees in major cities of Blantyre, Mangochi, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.

One of the applicants in the commercial city of Blantyre told the Pan African Visions that the situation is affecting her efforts to travel for a business trip to South Africa.

She said: ‘’I am being rfo4rced to undergo quite demanding times because, authorities here said there are just no resources to print the passports as it were. We are worried and government must address s this because apparently, we have already made some payments and spent in transport costs,’.

In the meantime, the status has led to massive debate in parliament, which is underway in the capital Lilongwe.

A vocal parliamentarian, Sameer Suleiman said the situation is also coming when government is already engaging with Israel for labor experts, describing the status as an existing disparity.

But when taking turns, Minister of Homeland Security Ken Zikhale Ng’oma patently said government is ‘doing something to make sure the production of passports resumes.’

So far, President Lazarus Chakwera has given the department an ultimatum of three weeks to ensure that the situation is addressed.