THE Registrar-General (RG)’s offices throughout the country have clocked a month without internet access, resulting in citizens failing to access critical documents such as national identity cards, passports as well as marriage, birth and death certificates.
In December last year, the RG’s offices abandoned the manual system and introduced computerised systems in the issuance of birth and death certificates.
A passport applicant at Marondera passport offices told NewsDay that she applied for an e-passport last month expecting it to be ready in seven days, but has not yet received it.
“The e-passport is supposed to take seven days from the date of application, but it’s now over three weeks. New applicants are being turned away because the system is down,” she said.
An employee at the RG’s offices who declined to be named said: “People are wasting their fuel and money going around the country in search of national documents, but the system is down. We are not sure of what is happening to the internet. We are waiting for instructions from the management on whether we will start doing the documents manually.”
Registrar-General Henry Machiri referred questions to his deputy, Ben Mpala whose phone was not reacheable.
Home Affairs ministry secretary Aaron Nhepera said he was not in a position to comment because he was out of office.
“Where did you get that information? You can talk to the RG, he might have detailed information. I am out of office for now,” Nhepera said.
- Passport office contractor in row over payments
- New political party surfaces
- Passport office contractor in row over payments
- New passports saga deepens
Keep Reading
- Follow us on Twitter @NewsDayZimbabwe
