Zimbabweans can now make passport and other personal document applications at the comfort of their computer screens following their government’s efforts to digitize the processes online.
Long queues have been a normal sight at the country’s Registrar General (RG) every day, as Zimbabweans had apply for documents such as identity cards, passports, birth, marriage and death certificates at these offices manually.
Kembo Mohadi, the Zimbabwean co-home affairs minister, said: “People will be able to download the form and only go to the Passport Office to get a serial number and pay for the document and submit the form. The Registrar General’s Office has digitized and soon everything will be very efficient.”
The Zimbabwe government has been experiencing a backlog of paper applications, something that has in many cases frustrated the citizens who come to apply them.
Those who may need emergency papers within a short time have had to part with huge amounts of money just to speed up the process. According to officials, it costs US$50 for one to get an ordinary passport- a process that can take up to three long months.
For one to get an emergency passport, they would have to part with US$250, a process that will take up to three days.
However, many people are skeptical about the digitization of the application process, as the country still has low Internet penetration with Internet World Stats putting it at only 12 percent of its 12 million people.
