Namibia

March 2006

  
Uncollected passports overwhelm Ministry, (New Era, 2006-03-06):-The Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration has run out of storage facilities for national documents because thousands of applicants have failed to collect processed documents. The Chief Control Officer for Identity Documents (IDs) Juuso Niilenge yesterday told New Era there are about 8 000 passports lying around at Home Affairs and despite calling owners to collect their documents, the response has not been satisfying. These passports remain uncollected in Windhoek and there could be more in outlying areas. "All the cupboards, the storage facilities are running out," he complained. Considering the fact that in the past, national documents took ages before they would come out, most people preferred applying for passports than IDs given that passport approvals would be done much faster than for IDs. Last week, the ministry issued a press statement appealing to members of the public who had applied for passports since January and before to collect their approved documents. "All these passports - people were applying not necessarily because they want to travel but simply because they do not want to wait for a long time for the Namibian ID," stated the Chief Control Officer. The new machine purchased at a cost of about N$40 million will enable the processing of about 1 500 documents per day and not 1000 documents per month as was previously the case. Public Relations Officer at the ministry, Kauku Hengari, stated that in its effort to deliver efficient, effective and accountable services, the ministry has taken up a number of streamlining measures and one of them is the introduction of the computerised system. In the past, the passport production process used to be manual and prints were handwritten. The system was vulnerable to forgery. "We used to manually place the passport sized photo and then illuminate it. But, people would put the passport in a freezer for some time and the illumination would come out. From there, they would remove the photo and put another one and then illuminate it again." This criminal discovery necessitated the ministry to come up with a system that would be in line with the rest of the world in terms of technology. The new system, according to Hengari, has serious security features and thus cannot easily be forged. "With the new system, we will reduce the time of production from months to 10 days or even seven. We wish that by 2010, we will produce passports within two days," Hengari indicated. The public relations officer added that members of the public have a negative perception about the entire ministry given a history of rudeness by its staff. In most cases, according to Hengari, the attitude of staff members would not be appealing to customers, with them citing "too much work" as the cause. Now that the new system is introduced, it is hoped that people will have less manual work and will be friendlier to members of the public than it has been alleged. Further, the ministry has embarked upon programmes that would strategise on how best the ministry can communicate with the public. Meanwhile, the ministry is still busy with the distribution of uncollected IDs in the regions. Towards the end of last year, nine mobile teams were dispatched to the 13 regions of the country to register and distribute uncollected identity documents. "The Omaheke team is still moving, today they are in Okakarara, next week Ovitoto and Hochfeld. The Kunene and Omusati teams finished last week while Katima and Ohangwena, they will also finish next week," Hengari told New Era. All regional offices have been instructed to put in an effort to distribute all the uncollected documents and the public is also encouraged to collect their IDs, he added. By July 2005, there were about 88 859 uncollected identity documents in the different regional offices with Khomas having the largest figure of 17 375. The accumulation was brought about due to the long period that people had to wait before their documents were ready.  
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp