Immigration Department to introduce One-Stop Centers for Malawi Passports
The Department of Immigration says it will soon launch a one stop centre programme in a bid to reduce congestion as well as minimize the distance which people travel to process and collect their passports.
The department’s spokesperson, Joseph Chawuwa said the programme is part of government’s initiative to bring services closer to the masses.
“As part of government reforms, government introduced the one stop center concept which entails the bringing of public services to the people. And we as a public service provider responsible for issuing of visas, processing of passports and citizenship are incorporated into that” he said
Chawuwa said the process is being spearheaded by Malawi Regulatory Authority (MACRA) and will involve the use of post offices considering their presence across the country.
“The organization responsible for the managing of this concept is MACRA. As you know post offices are under MACRA, and it is mandated to make sure that the post offices are properly renovated and partitioned,” he said
Currently Lilongwe and Mangochi Post offices have been chosen as pilot districts for the programme.
According to Chawuwa most of processes that are involved in acquisition of a passport will be done in these centres except for the printing of passports saying this will ease congestion at immigration regional offices.
The centres will see applicants; collecting passport forms, having their bio data captured; taking of passport size photos as well as making payments.
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Joseph Chauwa has made a very misleading statement to say that post offices are under MACRA. whch is not true. Post offices are under government because Malawi Postal Corporation is a statutory organisation which is subvented by government, but post offices are regulated by MACRA. Vuto longotola the so called spokesman limakhala limeneli – no knowlewdge about the organisational system. Osafunsa abwna bwanjo m’malo mongofikira kubwebweta. If his facts have been misrepresented then Nyasa Times too has demonstrated a degree of ignorance. I will rule Gambia for one billion years.
Malawians are being targetted and robbed of in Mozambique and zimbabwe borders. do something first. ask anyone who travels by road to RSA. embassies what are you doing about it.
No improvement in service will result from this “reform”. Cosmetic reform baasi (only, to be sure). MACRA is one of the most incompetent bodies in this country. And, we have nobody, but ourselves, to blame to the sad state of services we get. How and why did it come to this, that we accept such appalling standards of service from the government, banks and even the shops? And, let’s NOT kid ourselves, as we will still be paying bribes for the snail-pace service, even in these so-called centers. We may as well call them no-service centers, because that is what… Read more »