Malawi e-passport roll out delays
Officials at the Immigration Department say the much anticipated e-passport will not be rolled out in January 2021 as planned.
Immigration department spokesperson Joseph Chauwa said this was due to some challenges faced due to Covid-19.
He could however not say the exact date when the e-passport will roll out.
Chauwa, however, said reveal the department has finalized all technicalities towards fully migrating to the e-Passport.
He said once fully implemented, the usual old passport booklets will be cancelled in line with international standards.
Malawi was supposed to introduce the e-passport last month, November.
The Immigration department and Citizenship Services (DICS) was supposed to digitise its operation by October 2020 and replace Machine Readable Zone passports currently in use with electronic passports (e-passports).
Immigration Department has been migrating from analogue systems to e-services with the introduction of e-passport set to meet International standards.
Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :
What the government would have done is to instruct all passport whose dates are far to be completed say (1 year) to use them and during the renewing they must know that the old passport will be cancelled automatically. It seems that to have passport these days is a night mare as it is costly.
Is Malawi Govt and Malawi immigration is going insane Just one year Back only they change the Passport System and again they are changing
It will be a huge cost to Malawians to obtain the Passports again
I know Malawi is always last, no need for excuses