By Martha Chikoti, Contributor
The Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) has urged Malawians of goodwill to rise above party politics and defend the credibility of the Malawian passport.
Addressing the press in Lilongwe, CDEDI Executive Director Sylvester Namiwa, says restoring the credibility of the Malawi passport will help to save tax payers’ money which is being wasted through highly-insensitive and costly decisions being made by some selfish individuals.
He says his organisation is immediately demanding that Malawi Government should swallow its pride and revert to the Techno Brain assessment report, recover the initial system within a month, at a cost not more than US$3 million (K5.1 billion) as opposed to procuring a new system which will cost not less than US$40 million (K69 billion), bearing in mind that it has already spent $46 million (K79.6 billion).
“It should also be emphasized that all the hardware for this system is intact in all passport printing centres, namely Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Mangochi. Hence the need for Malawians to stand up and force the government to come to its senses and act in the best interest of all as opposed to serving selfish interests of few individuals, otherwise, we shall be forced to agitate for the inevitable protests,” he said.
Namiwa feels the current man-made passport crisis represents nothing but a gross human rights violation that has been entertained for unnecessarily too long, and has culminated into a huge international disgrace.
He has therefore urged authorities to swallow their pride and invite Techo Brain to reinstall the passport issuance system whose infrastructure is intact in all the passport issuance centres.
The CDEDI Executive Director highlighted that printing of the Malawi passport is a preserve of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services hence no need for a new passport issuance system.
Namiwa has, however, challenged some greedy Malawians who have caused this mess at the Immigration Department that they can still make their dirty money by supplying passport booklets, ink, ribbons and crystal grams while the system is running smoothly as opposed to putting spanners in the works and bring country at a standstill.
“Let alone, make more dirty money through procuring a parallel passport issuance system to the current one,”.
According to Namiwa, CDEDI has arrived at this position following its findings which have revealed that the Malawi Government is in the process of procuring a new passport supplier, an exercise that will cost taxpayers not less than $40 million (approximately K69 billion).
Without wasting tax payers’ money, CDEDI is proposing that Malawi Government should simply swallow its pride and let Techno Brain recover the system at a cost which is not exceeding $3 million (about K5.1 billion).
Government through its spokesman, Moses Kumkuyu, is yet to respond on our questionaire when we requested for clarity on the current passport issuance system status.
In February 2019, the Malawi Government, through the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services (DoICS), engaged Techno Brain to upgrade the Passport Issuance System (PIS) and introduce an electronic passport (e-passport) under a three-year Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement pegged at $60.8 million (about K105 billion).
