The Ministry of Internal Affairs has said it is currently stuck with over 20,000 new passport booklets that have not been picked by owners.
Simon Peter Mundeyi, the ministry spokesperson said with the 3000 passports processed and printed every day, the Directorate of Immigration and Citizenship Control is currently stuck after owners failed to pick their booklets which have accumulated at all the passport centres around the country.
“There is another accumulation of passports totaling to over 20,000 booklets. Many of these applied, paid for them, we processed them but the owners are not picking them yet we are running short of storage space at our centres. It is going to give us a challenge,” Mundeyi said.
He explained that most of the passports were applied for in 2018, 2019 and 2020 but noted that some of the applicants put in wrong information including phone contacts and were not able to receive notifications to pick their booklets.
“The problem could also be that the applicants haven’t received messages calling them to pick their booklets because they used brokers who intentionally put wrong numbers as a way to continue fleecing the applicants of money. They(brokers) know that if they put wrong numbers, the applicants won’t receive messages and will become desperate and definitely look for them.”
The Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesperson asked that anyone who applied for a passport and hasn’t yet received it should contact the ministry via its social media platforms for clarification on the stage of their application.