HOME AFFAIRS minister Frans Kapofi has called for calm in the wake of a nationwide shortage of traditional passport booklets.
In May, the ministry announced that it is experiencing a low stock of passports and appealed to citizens to apply for the travel document only when absolutely necessary.
The shortage dates back to March this year.
Passports restocking and processing of the backlog is anticipated to be resolved by 30 November 2019. Students furthering their studies overseas and business people are among top priority cases, in the meantime.
“The supply of passports will be received before the end of the next quarter (second quarter of 2019-2020 financial year). We therefore ask those who wish to plan for their travels to bear with us and put this into consideration,” Kapofi said during a media briefing held in Windhoek yesterday.
He assured that booklets ordered from an overseas supplier last year, will fill the gap caused by the shortage but could not establish an exact figure for the backlog acquired.
According to him, delays surrounding the process of finalising the sales contract and meeting of procurement process requirements resulted in stock running low. Consequently, he explained, that this raised the need for the ministry to ration its small available stock, to cater for the most critical travel needs.
The total of passports expected from the supplier stands at 110 000.
Kapofi explained that the brown passport was introduced to ease the backlog. The average period of validity of this document varies between six months and five years.
“It is perhaps worth mentioning that plans are at an advance stage to extend the validity period of our passports, from five (5) to ten (10) years,” he said.
The minister further informed that the ministry is in consultation with Southern African countries, to allow Namibians to travel using Emergency Travel Certificates (ETCs); and where the ETC is not accepted to allow holders of Namibian passports to enter their territories with a validity period of at least up to their last week.
At the same briefing, the ministry’s executive director Etienne Maritz, revealed that people are applying for passports as substitutes for identification cards and not collecting them. “I think the ministry has been lax in insuring that people are applying for a passport for travel purposes,” Maritz said.
Moving forward, he said, people applying for passports would have to prove their travel plans.
“We have also learnt that whenever you order and passports are delivered you need to start with procurement of the next batch immediately,” he added.
Last week, The Namibian, reported that some European countries are refusing the brown passport, making it impossiblee for Namibians wishing to travel to these countries to do so.
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