By Virginia Njovo
MASVINGO – The Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Ambassador Raphael Faranisi, has admitted he does not know when the Masvingo Provincial Passport Office will resume operations, leaving thousands of residents without access to travel documents indefinitely.
Contacted by TellZim News for commnet regarding the reopening of the office, Ambassador Faranisi expressed no optimism about the office’s imminent reopening when contacted by TellZim News.
“I really don’t know and I don’t want to speculate that we may come next year or the next one. We will eventually come to open that office but I am not sure when because we have a number of programmes we are currently running some with the diaspora so we have to balance them,” said Ambasador Faranisi.
The passport office, located in Masvingo city, ceased issuing passports in March 2020 during the first COVID-19 lockdown and never resumed operations. While it continues to handle birth certificates and distribution of passports applied for before the pandemic, it has remained closed to new passport applicants for over five years, even after the government introduced e-passports.
Sources within the government revealed that the continued closure was part of a strategic decision aimed at preventing regional imbalance. The rationale was that upgrading the provincial office first would make it difficult to subsequently roll out the same advanced facilities in districts. The intention was to ensure all seven districts of Masvingo would eventually have their own fully functional passport offices.
However, this decentralization plan has largely stalled, creating a significant access crisis for most of the province. To date, the government has only established one functioning e-passport office in Mwenezi District at the Rutenga registry office.
While the Rutenga office serves people in Mwenezi, Chiredzi and some parts of Chivi District, it has left the majority of the province’s population with limited options. Residents from Masvingo, Bikita, Gutu, Zaka districtsand other parts of Chivi find it more practical to travel to Zvishavane in Midlands province or all the way to Harare to apply for the crucial travel document.
Those who attempt to use the Mwenezi office often face additional challenges. Applicants report prolonged processing times even for emergency passports, with the Rutenga office at one point going for three months without disbursing any documents, a situation that only improved after media exposure sparked public outcry.
Operational challenges further complicate the situation, with officials at the Rutenga office complaining of frequent fuel shortages that prevent them from collecting documents from Harare.
With Faranisi’s comments confirming the indefinite closure of the provincial office and the district rollout stalled, residents of central Masvingo continue to bear the burden of a decentralization plan that has left them without accessible passport services for more than half a decade.
