Laughing Stock Namibia

WE ARE being held prisoners in our own country! Nowhere in the world is travel restricted like in Namibia through the incompetence of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

We applied for the renewal of our passports at the beginning of October only to be told in mid-November that there was no hope of the passports being ready by 21 December 2012. This resulted in us having to cancel our holiday and forfeit our booking deposit of N$4000.
We have now postponed our trip to February 2013 and I was told [on 21 December] that in all probabilities the passports will still not be ready!
We have to apply for a ‘Refugee Passport’ and for that we have to travel to Windhoek to apply and again to collect.
The regional office cannot process this application!
What a sorry state of affairs and a disgrace to our bureaucracy!
The reason given is that they don’t have passport books. We are informed by a very reliable source that the account from Namibia is outstanding and that the printers will thus not deliver the books!
Shame on you Namibia. You are the laughing stock of the world!

Peter Odendaal
Swakopmund

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