The Immigrations Department has appealed to members of the public to desist from assisting foreign nationals acquire national documents such as National Registration Cards, NRCs, and passports.
Immigrations Department Public Relations Officer, Mulako Mbangweta, said the act is a threat to national security.
Ms Mbangweta said the immigrations department, would soon begin arresting those allegedly assisting the illegal immigrants and advised people signing as commissioner of oaths for people intending to obtain the passport to be cautious.
She said it was important that the commissioner of oath thoroughly screened the people that they signed for on the documents adding the immigrations department would soon start taking action against the erring commissioner of oaths.
So far about two Zimbabweans have been arrested for being in possession of the Zambian NRCs and the new digitalized passports.
Another woman identified as Old Bikoni Arlene, aged 30, was arrested for allegedly entered the country through the Lusaka International Airport from the United Kingdom on the March 2009 and was issued with a passport on the 6th of March 2009.
The woman was also found with an NRC bearing different details from those that appeared on the passport.
Meanwhile, Ms Mbangweta said the Immigrations Department in Mpulungu has arrested Four Eritrea nationals for illegally staying in the country.
She said the Four Eritrea nationals had been detained and would soon be deported to their country of origin.
And over 23 Congolese were over the weekend released and had since been deported to Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ms. Mbangweta said the exercise was aimed at decongesting the Police cells.
ENDS/MP/ZANIS/SJK
This is all due to failure and corruption among the Immigration Dept . itself . If it weren’t the case, I can’t see any ordinary citizen going to that extent.
Difficulty task you have of ejecting such bad elements from our country ,please do not relent double your efforts.
Why is it always zimbabweans?! Is this merely an orchestration of the bureacratic model that is immigratory discriminitation or rather, a matter of wrongful positioning a.k.a wrong place at the wrong time or sheer incompetence? hehe jokes..my girlfriend’s zimbabwean. Love her to death.
Get your policies tight. If Zambians see profits in this act, then they do not care if it disturbs anyone.
Please make it easier for people to be Zambian citizens.
I agree with you number 5 they should make it easier for people to become zambian citizens. Rather than deporting people all the time it could save lots of money too. And when you get people with skills they could help develop our country.
I agree with you TRIGO, but at the same time we should realise that entering any country illigally is never a passport to citizenship of that country. Every country has laws regarding immigration and anyone violating such laws has no right to turn arround and claim ignorance, and then try to benefit from the very laws they didn’t respect to begin with. I am sure Zambia, like any other country, is admitting and naturalizing lawful and law abiding people to its ranks. At the same, Zambia has the right and security obligations to rid herself of characters with dubious stories or no documents. By the way, I am a Zambian living in the United States right now, and believe me it is even worse…