12 May 2014

Department of Immigration and Citizenship director says his organisation did not perform as expected last year.

Briefing the media on the department’s successes and challenges on May 8, Mr Mabuse Pule said they did not undertake most of the activities they had agreed upon. “If they did start, they were not completed, so we need to improve our performance in order to do our ministry proud,” Mr Pule said.

He added that the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs assessed system centres on service excellence, teamwork, continuous improvement and integrity.

However, he noted that the department had made some achievement in the area of customer care and service by establishing trained floor managers in all service centres.

“We have also published our services and their checklists, introduced point of sales at head sales for convenience of cash card holders. We have improved our responsiveness to customers, trained several officers in customer care amongst others,” he said.

Mr Pule also said the department had reduced time taken to get a passport from five to two or three days and have also reduced passport fee for children from P260 to P100.

Further, he said they have also improved their visa regime by introducing new ones for tourist, investment, business and diplomatic with the hope of promoting business and foreign direct investment.

“We hope this will also facilitate diamond purchasing in Botswana,” he said. On challenges, he said there was need to work hard to reduce corruption cases to nil.

Also, he said the department was unable to meet its turnaround time for work and residence permits and visa and encountered system breakdowns and unable to address staff grievances on time.

Nevertheless, Mr Pule said the department was looking into correcting its shortcomings and improving its systems. In other issues, he said they have developed a draft passport policy which they hope will become law and is due to be submitted to Parliament this year. ENDS