Passport Production Decentralization unnecessary:Registrar General

Takudzwa Chihambakwe

ZIMBABWE’S Registrar-General, Clemence Masango has told parliamentarians that there is no need to decentralize printing of passports in the country as the production plant at Magama Tongogara barracks in Harare can meet demand if it operates at full capacity.

“This plant has a capacity to do 8000 booklets per day. If all our
printers are working, we can produce 3000 passports per day. For us to get to produce 8000 passports we need an additional 14 printers, so we have 21 printers working,” he said.

“However, the national demand for passports is approximately 1000 per day. When everything is in place here, there is excess capacity. Therefore, we do not need to replicate this kind of investment in all provinces at the moment. We got more than enough here. That is why we said there is no need to decentralize passport production,” explained Masango.

Currently the plant is producing 750 passports per day.

He added that decentralization was done for application and processing of
passports.

“We have decentralized passport application facilities to all provinces. When resources permit we can further decentralize to districts.”

“Besides passports, one can access birth or death certificates, as well as things like national identification documents without coming to Harare. If one goes to districts, there are sub-offices, all these efforts are part of the decentralization we have done,” highlighted Masango.