09 Feb 2015

Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Mr Edwin Batshu says issuance of passports is back to normal after the by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship experienced severe challenges in December.

He told Parliament, on February 6, that the problem, which left many applicants unable to be issued new passports around the festive period, arose after the passport personalisation system broke down.

“The passport personalisation system suffered technical problems in December after the ink cartage used became faulty. The department was forced to suspend issuance of new passports in December because of that unforeseen problem. 

It was something out of our control and the ministry regrets the inconvenience caused to the public,” explained the minister. Selebi Phikwe West MP, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse had asked the minister to explain why the country experienced serious disruptions of issuance of passports in December.

“The situation affected my people who required passports in order to travel outside the country for various reasons,” charged the Botswana Congress Party legislator.

However, minister Batshu said people who needed to travel outside the country as a matter of urgency were issued emergency travel documents depending on their respective cases. He said by the time the machine was fixed and operating again, the department had accumulated about 8 000 new applications.

“The system is back to normal functioning and the department expects that those problems will never happen again. ENDS