Immigration Department to suspend passport printing from Friday for upgrade exercise
The immigration department says it will carry out an upgrading exercise of its passport printing system from Friday, December 23 to 26, 2016.
Confirming the development to the Malawi News Agency (MANA) on Wednesday, the department’s National Public Relations Officer (PRO), Joseph Chauwa said there will be a complete shutdown of the whole passport printing system on the days that the upgrading will be carried out.
Currently, the printing of passports takes place in the tree major cities in the country namely Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.
The upgrading of the passport printing system is said to increase the processing speed and memory of the department’s machines.
“We will shut down the whole passport printing system from Friday evening and printing of passports will resume again on Monday, in the afternoon. We will only print passports for emergencies on the 26th and then resume normal printing on the days to follow,” he explained.
Chauwa said that the Immigration Department has taken advantage of the festive season holidays to upgrade the passport printing system so that people who want to print passports are not affected by the shut down.
Moreover, the upgrading is said to be to the advantage of immigration officials who are operators and administrators of the immigration system with passport owners receiving a similar product as before.
“The end users of the passport printing system, who are the passport applicants, will not be able to notice any change the system upgrade will bring because the end product will be the same passports as before,” the PRO said.
