Dear Mr Kampyongo,
I am writing this letter to you on behalf of my Father, a Zambian citizen residing in Nairobi, Kenya. My father applied to have his passport renewed from the Zambian High Commission in Nairobi on 02 November 2018, his current passport at the time was set to expire in December 2018. The high commission took his application and issued a receipt for the same, by January 2019 he had still not received his new passport and I was forced to travel to Zambia from South Africa to follow up on the same passport.
I went to the Passport head office in Lusaka town and was attended to by a gentleman in room 7 who assured me that the passport had been processed and would arrive via diplomatic bag in Nairobi in 2-3 weeks. I relayed the message to Nairobi and left. Fast forward to the end of February 2019, the passport had still not arrived, my mother also travelled from Nairobi to Lusaka in March, to follow up on this now elusive passport, however this time the story changed “The pictures accompanying his application were not clear enough, therefore the passport had not been processed and he would need to resubmit new pictures.”
How possible is that after the embassy had received, reviewed and approved the same application? Are they not conversant with the requirements? Did the requirements change when the passport was in transit? Oh well let us not argue, he went on to submit new photos and a new application on 17th April accompanied with an Embassy letter referring to the receipt issued on November 2018.
We are now heading into July and my father, a senior Zambian citizen of 70 years still has no passport and is basically stranded without papers in a foreign country. He required surgery last month which he could not get because he had no legal form of identification acceptable in a Kenyan hospital. This month his brother died and he could not travel to Zambia to bury him because the Ministry of home affairs and Zambian high commission have rendered him an undocumented migrant.
The high commission in Kenya currently sits without a high commissioner or a deputy and as a result the majority of staff at this foreign representation office with the mandate to serve Zambians living in Kenya are unable to help him or provide adequate answers. This old man goes to the High Commissio everyday in search of his passport. As if he is begging for something he is not entitled to.
Is it not every Zambian citizen’s right to have a passport? Or is it now a privilege for Zambians living in diaspora to be documented or to have access to a Zambian passport? Should a 70 year old man have to beg for a passport in addition to paying the prescribed fees?
I am writing to you because we have reached our wits end with this matter and clearly your Ministry of Home Affairs, specifically the department of immigration is failing and they have failed my father. Perhaps it would have been easier for him to walk from Kenya, through Tanzania to Zambia to apply for this privileged document that affords him the dignity of being a human being in a foreign country.
Mpangi Kwenge
A concerned daughter/dejected citizen
Going by the name, these people are foreigners, just stay in your country.
Sad what incompetence Lungu has brought to the Zambian government. Leadership is not a joke. These are real issues that show how useless a PF led government is.
If FIC report can not be acted upon what more a mere passport.
Why is Kampyongo not arrested for invading Cmrd Mmembe’s house in his village? In my opinion occupying someone’s house is robbery.
Now what has Kampyongo done with Passports again?
If you want to renew your passport, send it to a relative in Zambia. High commissioners in the diaspora are mediocre with no sense of urgency. They live abroad but know nothing about work ethics. You would think if they are in the USA they would act like Americans as far as customer service but alas!
If you’ve nothing to say please please don’t say anything
Wajimona: whn will u rise above tribe as the basis of citizenship? If u object to that, petition govt to stop granting citizenship to people without a tribe in Zambia. Get used to the concept of citizenship protected by a constitution and not protected by a tribe.
Zambian Passport Office are useless as they come… 8 years ago I had to request forms be sent by a relative to the UK which took almost a century to reach me as the hungry chaps at Zampost had tempered with thinking there is ££££ in it. I returned the forms, photos with my old passport via DHL and a relative had to go to the office and sort it out for me. Zambian embassy will not do anything especially now that they are not even being paid on time for money for bus fare to go window shopping.
PFoools chipante pante govt full of dander heads and drunks and their ka leader a certain theiving lawyer wanna be who has destroyed an exceptional economy through his dullness. what do you expect from id!ots like that…. I rest my case
But your dad’s passport hasn’t expired yet. So what the fuss?
Typo. The correct expiry date is December 2018, That’s the fuss.
What a shame to our Zambian Government. They are many cases like this one. I do not understand our government any more. How long will it take the Zambian Government to start processing Dual Citizens to some of us who lost Zambian Citizenship by acquiring another nationality? If the Government is failing to provide services for renewing passports of the Zambians in diaspora and has not provided services for restoring those who have lost Zambian Citizenship, then the talk about developing Zambia economically is just a joke. The president should do something. It breaks my heart when I hear the majority of Zambians are in poverty when we have vast natural resources.
Mpangi Kwenge. Check your Facebook.
Passport offices have simply been a nonsense
Nothing to do with this present government
Agree with “The Real Olivia Pope”Locally the passport office has greatly improved in efficiency. It is our embassies, even in the UK where it was in Kensington,no sure now one of the best if not riches boroughs, just getting inside gives you a zambian, dusty and mediocre atmosphere. Civil servants need to change their attitude
Zambian civil service is full of people either too lazy to work or want to receive bribes to do their jobs. You can’t even use a public toilet at the passport office, individuals working there are too lazy to clean it. The attitude of our civil service stinks and this leads to failure by any government to implement delivery of development. Issuing a passport can be done in a day especially if it is a renewal. Personally I don’t bother anymore with this stinking rotten attitude; shocking this bad attitude is also in our foreign missions abroad.
@Mpangi, consider applying for an Emergency Travelling Document. They are usually issued by the same Mission and takes same day to have it.
Regards
Diplomat, apparently a replacement High Commissioner has not been appointed yet. Does the Law allow any other High Commission official to issue an emergency travel document?
I think you have been away too long, I think you should know by now that nothing moves in Zambia without paying someone. I renewed my passport last year while based in Germany and I sent my cousin with cash and the passport was issued in 2 days.
It’s like in Zambia you have to beg for everything! Just see how most Zambians drive on our roads. You have to beg to join at road intersections! You have to beg to overtake a slow driver or you will be in a race – Dangerous driving for which you have to beg RTSA to act on reported such cases! You have to beg drivers to give clear indicator signals on roundabouts or when changing lanes. You have to beg Zambians to be courteous to join the queue when they find one as opposed to jumping the queue – no manners in a lot of our people! That is the society you get when you kill Education! So depressing!
CC: I hear u. Godfridah Sumaili doesn’t mind at all about that. People can turn up in church with stolen money in their pockets. That wouldn’t worry the leadership of the world’s only Christian country.
Nothing will move forward until you don’t give them something. That is the work culture in the civil service.
Mediocrity is the order of the day with the GRZ evil servants. Nothing gets done if you don’t pay a bribe and more especially if they know you are in the diaspora. It’s just pure wickedness on their part.
If it’s Chinese, Indians or whites all those who are negatively commenting, they wouldn’t hv said anything. But jst bcoz he’s African, u hv said a lot of rubbish, why questioning? Whts wrong with the names, u can hv all English names, colòur – any, ad comes from Mpòrokoso, Northern Province ad b Zambian. No one will say no whn u need an NRC, passport or any, why bcos u don’t know me. Whts important is am Zambian, not even the govt can challenge or declare me a foreigner whn am not. If u don’t hv anything to comment on, just shut up. Chinese, Indians plus foreigners are stealing land, becoming billionaires, you’re silent bt jst over an issue of a passport, rubbish comments instead of sympathisings with the old man ad all those helping him to get the document.
I thought Kampyongo had sorted out these Passport guys out. When they see that you live in the diaspora, they only see you as a walking purse and start creating issues so that you are forced to “ni cekeleko” to move it along. I will give credit where it is due – if it were not the Embassy in Berlin – I would never have gotten my passport. Didn’t he visit them recently when he warned them that he could fire them and employ new people the same day? There is a video circulating on the internet on this – they look like wet rats in the rain… Bwana Minister, just when a lot of us were praising you for this. Do not disappoint us, please….This is a right not a privilege.
Mpanji I am sorry to hear your ordeal with dads passport. My experience with processing passports has been good with the Zambian High commission in Kenya. I am sure that with stringent follow up this matter will soon be resolved. Dad can also get an emergency travel document until the passport is secured. Pole sana.
Kampyongo is as incompetent as is Master ECL
How long is the zambian diaspora waiting for their duel citizenship
Shame on these criminals
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