Registrar-General’s Have No Internet Connection

THE Registrar-General (RG)’s offices throughout the country have now gone for a month without internet access. Citizens have failed to access critical documents such as national identity cards, passports as well as marriage, birth and death certificates.

The RG’s department abandoned the manual system in December 2021 and introduced computerised systems in the issuance of birth and death certificates. However, the department is struggling to maintain the new systems as internet connectivity challenges keep surfacing.

A passport applicant at Marondera passport offices said that she applied for an e-passport last month expecting it to be ready in seven days, but has not yet received it.

“The e-passport is supposed to take seven days from the date of application, but it’s now over three weeks. New applicants are being turned away because the system is down.”

An employee at the department who declined to be named said:

“People are wasting their fuel and money going around the country in search of national documents, but the system is down. We are not sure of what is happening to the internet. We are waiting for instructions from the management on whether we will start doing the documents manually.”

Registrar-General Henry Machiri referred questions to his deputy, Ben Mpala whose phone was not reacheable. Home Affairs ministry secretary Aaron Nhepera said he was out of office.

“Where did you get that information? You can talk to the RG, he might have detailed information. I am out of office for now,” Nhepera said.

Some citizens believe this is a strategy to reduce the number of new voters since most of the new voters are millennials whom political analysts believe to be Chamisa's demographic.