New passports will be issued out this month.
Home Affairs Permanent Secretary, Susan Sikaneta said this will be done from three offices.
Ms. Sikaneta said work at the three offices have reached an advanced stage and installation of machines is almost complete.
She said government was installing new passport machines in Lusaka, Ndola and Livingstone.
Ms. Sikaneta said experts from Germany are in the country and are ensuring that the passport machines are installed.
What is the grace period given? It makes no sense to say new passports are coming this month and then there is no detailed explanation on how the old will have to be handled in the meantime. What about those Zambians who are out of the counrty for various reasons? What logistics have been put in place in the missions abroad to take care of their passporst? It is this sort of information that we require in order to plan than just giving people few lines on new passports coming this month.LT please give us more on this one. Thanks.
Get them told number one. you doing a good job 🙂
Zambian, no one is answerable in zambia. Anyone can do (say in this case) any rubbish. Maybe you don’t have to blame LT. Maybe they wrote exactly what the minister said.
Every Zambian has a right to a pasport.Lack of clear information on issues such as those raised in #1 will certainy breed confusion.And confusion in my beloved Zed breeds lots of corruption.If you do’nt know anyone at Passports Office, you have to cheka and if you do’nt Lord knows what next.
It seems changing of documents like the passport, drivers’ license have become money spinners for the government. Are at point going to be asked to change NRCs? What is the money raised form this “spin” for this time around?
Two years down the line government will announcing NEW PASSPORTS again. Very wasteful!! The chaps go behind and share proceeds with the so called German experts!
i think the passport issue grz is doing a good job so as to prevent passport forgers from stealing our zed passports. congrats minister but at the same time am tired of listening to the same bu%%%6&t all the time just issue the Go%%damn passports and shut up..
We desperately need more information as mentioned in No.1. It is not easy to mantain the same passports for a long time. The new passports will be designed by the same human beings who are capabable selling out their high tech to other people for lots of money. Give us more details such as the cost of new passports, grace period, what happens to those abroad etc. Mind you Matero “passort offices” are networking with the passport office. Do not be surprised to find the new tech there soon.
This government is founded on screwing and abusing its citizens. It never fails to dream up of schemes and fraud tricks to dispossess Zambians of their hard earned money.
On passports, I am sure that some donor funded agency has told them that the new passports are fool-proof and secure. These guys in GRZ do not understand that anything designed technically by another man in this digital age can be undone by another. There is no fool-proof solution other than making sure that the issues of national respect for citizens, law and order, economic focus on citizens will go a long way to uplift the hearts and minds of Zambians. These are the first point of failure in any security system.
No 3, thanks for your comment but i was not blaming LT,what they should have done was to quiz the PS for more information.I believe that is what ivestigative journalism is all about.I am sure if that was done at the time the briefing on this matter was done, the PS would have elucidated more and we would have not raised the issue of detailed information as the case is now.
Otherwise i really appreciate the role LT is playing not only on this issue but also in other areas that they have brought to the fore for us to debate in a mature way and with the level-headedness of mind.Thanks.
What will happen to my Visa issues on my current passport?
are the new passports biometric????
what’s wrong with the current passports?
Do not ask so many unnecessary Q?s. Just get the bloody new passport and move on.
This is ridiculous. I should fly to Lusaka to queue up for one hour only to be told I’m in the wrong queue? Boma ilibe nchito, we should just close shop and make the whole country a theme park. Tell those bleeders in government I’m not pleased. #14, are you serious?
It’s a step in the right direction. The same people saying that there is no point in introducing new technology will be the same ones saying that Zed is “so backward” when in five years time every other country has a biometric passport. We should all give the government a pat on the back for trying to keep as in tune with the rest of the world. Mule tasha bane!!!
I saw one with a Somalian last week, nice security marks but with the corruption levels pa Zed, they are already in wrong hands.
There is too much bastardisation in the MMD regime. In 1998 passports were changed because the mothers claimed they needed to be computerised. When I lost ny passport in 2006, the only thing they could look for was a dirty old file. So what computerisation? This is total nonsense. The bottom line is that it is a way of raising cash by the defunctioning MMD government.period.
Biometric or not a passport is a passport.All we need is to pay the immigration officers wages worth their labour and encourage all Zambians to be patriotic so as to give either the police or immigration officers information about illegal immigrants in Zambia.
The major problem we are faced with as Zambians is that of poverty.Until poverty is seriously reduced, all the other efforts will be mere academic or political exercises.
Let us therefore, co operate with the government of the day by ensuring poverty levels are reduced.Reduce poverty first and all the other benefits shall be added unto you.For introducing the new BIOMETRIC PASSPORT one can only say ;
WELL DONE GRZ!!!!!!!!!!
whats going to happen to us zambian abroad,they should state the grace period and make it easy to get one at the zambia mission in london,because at the moment it takes about 6months to get your passport abroad when it expairs or you loose it,
I am not exactly sure about the reasoning behind coming up with new passports.To my knowledge the current ones are computerised.When they talk about making passports that are difficult to forge doesn`t make much sense.The main problem is the corrupt passport officers and not that anyone forges our passports.
Anyway,this is just a money making machine for our politicians in Zambia and increase in tribalism and favours in these good for nothing embassies.
The least they can do is to give ample and reasonable grace period to avoid any chaos during such an exercise.
Like said before elsewhere, this grz is out to rob all citizens out of anything of value by all means. If it is not Mutati at Commerce, it is Levy and the mining companies, or some other *****s at passports, or some nuts at road transport to do with permits, or to do with electricity bills, or to do with water bills, or to do with school fees, or some mental dwarf at unza asking for increased fees from helpless students, or some councils asking for increased rates for services that are none-existant!! Such is the fraudulent nature of life in MMD’s Zambia. Not only do they rig elections, but they even have guts to condemn rigged elections elsewhere like in Zim!!
Levy will become rich this year.Come on pipo lets pay again so that levy can buy another bland new executive helicopter.Otherwise he will burn in his old one as it is a custom in his familly.Lets prevent this desaster by hambly ourselves and pay for new passports.
When are we going to start designing our own passports in Zambia, instead of always buying from the Germans/any-other-passport-makers?
My take here is that if we manufacture our own, then those passports will be safer and difficulty to forge! Also, the Germans, who make the passports know how to play around with the passport make so much that they can always do something at their will.
HOW MANY TIMES AM I GOING TO BE TAXED MWEBANTU????? I MUST PAY AGAIN FOR NEW PASSPORTS FOR ME, MY WIFE AND FOUR CHILDREN, EEHH???? YET ALL OF US OUR PASSPORTS ARE VALID UNTIL 2016. LORD HAVE MERCY ON ME.
AWE MWEBANTU NANYA INE KULI TAX, SOON IT WILL BE THE DRIVERS LICENCE.
ONE WONDERS WHY THE FORGEABLE NRC IS NOT BEING CHANGED FOR A COMPUTERISED NATIONAL I.D. I AM SURE THE TAXES ARE TOO SMALL FOR THE CROOKS TO REAP.
AWE TWANYA KWENA. NO ONE TO BLAME SO FAR…
Are the still K72,000?
Do I need one since I have been a DJ for years?
Open secrete – Day-time robbery!
Okey, we’ll pay.
But make it easy not giving these guys at the pp office bribes, through some agents on the streets.
Or else some one will rise from the dead and put things right.
I like this iniative to deliver new passports to ZAmbian citizens. Mine is almost torned apart and the passport photo on it is almost falling off. Good work.
ala,………suke chile,….i see you’re still alive my brother. dont worry,….with your life savings as a DJ for all these years iam sure passport fees shouldnt be a problem.
Wow! All i can say is YOOO!!! You see, the problem with the Zambian government is that they are not born again people. The devil has taken root in the country so much that they fail to discern what is spiritual from what is physical. This is part of the devils’ plots to perpetuate poverty in the country via politics. Wakeup and smell the coffee!!!!That is begin to pray as a country. Zambia declares itself as a christian contry, well!! do it and show it. Be a prayerful nation and things will change for the best. Only those in the spirit of God will understand what I am saying as the Bilbe says those people living in the flesh will not understand things of the spirit.Pay for the p/port & pray
I just renewwd my passport early last year and its valid for ten years. Now My question is, whats the grace period for me to use this passport before I get the new one knowing how our office work in zambia and I stay abroad and I need to travel back and forth due to family matters.We need to know how you plan to faze them out.
I will appreciate an answer to my concern.
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