The Zimbabwe Government will soon open e-passport offices in the United Kingdom (UK) to ease the convenience of acquiring essential documents.
Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Kazembe Kazembe revealed this in a recent wide-ranging interview with the Sunday Mail.
Current Progress
Zimbabwe launched the biometric e-passport in December 2021. The e-passport is biometric, which means it has additional security features like fingerprints compared to the older machine-readable passports. This can help prevent forgery and identity theft.
While the Civil Registry is issuing e-passports, holders’ old machine-readable passports are still valid until they expire. All these years, Zimbabweans outside the country had to fly back to Zimbabwe or send people to apply for new ones if their old passports expired.
In April, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to South Africa, David Hamadziripi, announced that the passport centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, was complete. The South African passport centre can process 18 passports simultaneously, with an expected turnaround time of less than 10 minutes per client, capable of clearing at least 360 people per day.
ALSO READ: Johannesburg Zimbabwe Passport Centre To Open This Month: Here Is What You Need To Know
Zimbabwe Opening E-Passport Offices In The UK
Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe revealed that the Government will open more centres in the United Kingdom (UK), United States (US) and Zambia:
“The department is targeting to establish e-passport offices in South Africa (Johannesburg and Cape Town). The Johannesburg e-passport office is ready for commissioning. The other offices will be established in the United Kingdom, the United States and Zambia.”
Minister Kazembe also said people can apply for their passports online from the end of the year. The Minister also revealed that the Government has opened additional e-passport centres across the country:
“So far, 15 e-passport offices have been established at the following registry offices since the inception of the project: Harare; the Bulawayo Provincial Registry; the Chinhoyi Provincial Registry; the Marondera Provincial Registry; the Gweru Provincial Registry; the Gwanda Provincial Registry; the Lupane Provincial Registry; the Chitungwiza District Registry; the Hwange District Registry; the Murewa District Registry; the Zvishavane District Registry; the Beitbridge District Registry; the Mazowe District Registry; the Chipinge District Registry; and the Mwenezi District Registry.”
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