The month of June ushers in the cold weather but this year also brings the scramble for new Passports and Travel Documents.
All old passports ceased to be valid for outward travel from Zambia on 31st May 2009 but remain useable only for inward travel to Zambia only until 31st August 2009.
It is understandable that the Ministry of Home Affairs would like to replace all old black cover passports with the new green cover replacements in a short a time as possible, but the challenges of achieving this require some analysis and strategic planning.
Long queues running to the main road are the order of the day at the passport office. All payment counters experience extended queues such that even the express applications which attract a K200,000 additional charge are congested throughout the day. The building is overrun by applicants who are either jostling in the queues or milling about in the corridors in an effort to influence the speed of production of their passports.
Express applications are designed to be processed within 5 working days and standard applications are set to be ready for collection within 15 working days. A Travel Document however can be obtained in one day and is valid for 6 months.
Application forms are obtained from the ground floor foyer but passport applications and passport collections are performed on the first floor at the relevant counters where most of the congestion is experienced.
Cashiers that collect payments for passport applications spend much of their time checking that the forms are in order and take about ten minutes to process each applicant. Passport officers on the ground floor are available for consultation, but nobody seems to use them at all. A short analysis at the payment counters revealed that two to three applications out of every five are turned away due to issues with the documentation presented to the cashiers. Documentation issues include non-compliant photographs, non-certified copies of relevant ID’s, lack of recommender on application forms, and non-completion of requirements on application forms.
After the applications are successfully submitted, applicants immediately queue up to go for interviews before the passport processing phase begins. These queues are equally long but are processed much faster because the interview process is generally quite efficient.
Passport applications then go through the main processing system via the various officers before being dispatched to an off site location for printing. This results in two bundles being developed; one at the passport office waiting to be dispatched to the printing site, and one at the printing site waiting to be dispatched back to the passport office for collection by applicants.
Many applicants queue up daily at the passport office to check if their passports are ready and if so, hopefully collect them. This means applicants will queue up for several days in a row until they physically obtain their passports.
The congestion and uncertainty at the passport office has bred some peculiar behaviour patterns. Applicants tend to hang around the passport offices to follow passport officers in an effort to ensure that their applications are steadily going through the processing cycle and are not forgotten or lost. Some self appointed passport application agents will stand in the long queues on behalf of applicants to keep a slot in the slow moving queue. A small fee is levied for this service and other such services that take the pressure off the applicants in the passport application pipeline.
There are some opportunities for the passport office to operate more efficiently and effectively through some basic reorganization of processes and dissemination of relevant information to the public.
The current status of having passport officers stationed at the ground floor foyer is clearly not working well. It would be more efficient and effective for two or three officers to stand at the entrance to the staircase and check every applicant’s documents before they are allowed to go upstairs to the payment counters. This would reduce the rejection rate to zero at the counters and reduce the payment process from ten minutes per applicant to less than five minutes. This exercise would increase processing throughput by more than 100 percent.
The passport office would see some order in the various offices and a reduction of applicants milling around the corridors would allow officers to concentrate on processing applications. This improvement in focus within the passport office would also result in an increase in productivity of more than 100 percent.
Another improvement in operations can be in the area of disemination of information. Each batch of passports delivered to the passport office for collection by the public could be accompanied by a list with names and passport numbers. The list could be displayed on a notice board in an appropriate room so that every applicant can check if their passport is ready for collection. If the passport is on a list then the applicant has good reason to go upstairs to queue and collect their passport. If not, then the applicant need not wait but come back the next day to check on the board again. This exercise can even be computerized and beamed with a data projector onto a big screen for all to see and read. The data projector option allows for real time updating of the collection list much like those in airports showing flight arrivals and departures. This is nothing too complicated or impossible to do.
The above measures do not require any financial investment but simply some human resource rearranging and systems management in order to double or treble productivity in passport processing.
At the moment cross border traders are spending sleepless nights trying to obtain a passport to earn a living. Many business travelers are opting to secure a travel document whilst the passport is being processed. Much wastage of time, material and money is being experienced by business people as they scramble to travel to make some money to pay rents, school fees, medical bills and buy food for the family.
The overload at the passport office has resulted in files being lost or misplaced, passports not being collected because many applicants have opted to apply for a travel document in addition to the passport, and several mistakes may be made on the data in passports issued such that the passport holder could find themselves detained in other countries due to inconsistent information on their travel documents.
The Ministry of Home Affairs is part of the civil service. As such, the Ministry should design its processes around the needs of the people and not for the people to be made to comply with the fancies of the Ministry.
There is much business that is being lost by businessmen and women that are spending untold hours at the passport office waiting for their documents to come through. This can be avoided and steps should be taken immediately to address this bottleneck that is choking trade between Zambia and the outside world.
All old passports ceased to be valid for outward travel from Zambia on 31st May 2009 but remain useable only for inward travel to Zambia only until 31st August 2009.
It is understandable that the Ministry of Home Affairs would like to replace all old black cover passports with the new green cover replacements in a short a time as possible, but the challenges of achieving this require some analysis and strategic planning.
Long queues running to the main road are the order of the day at the passport office. All payment counters experience extended queues such that even the express applications which attract a K200,000 additional charge are congested throughout the day. The building is overrun by applicants who are either jostling in the queues or milling about in the corridors in an effort to influence the speed of production of their passports.
Express applications are designed to be processed within 5 working days and standard applications are set to be ready for collection within 15 working days. A Travel Document however can be obtained in one day and is valid for 6 months.
Application forms are obtained from the ground floor foyer but passport applications and passport collections are performed on the first floor at the relevant counters where most of the congestion is experienced.
Cashiers that collect payments for passport applications spend much of their time checking that the forms are in order and take about ten minutes to process each applicant. Passport officers on the ground floor are available for consultation, but nobody seems to use them at all. A short analysis at the payment counters revealed that two to three applications out of every five are turned away due to issues with the documentation presented to the cashiers. Documentation issues include non-compliant photographs, non-certified copies of relevant ID’s, lack of recommender on application forms, and non-completion of requirements on application forms.
After the applications are successfully submitted, applicants immediately queue up to go for interviews before the passport processing phase begins. These queues are equally long but are processed much faster because the interview process is generally quite efficient.
Passport applications then go through the main processing system via the various officers before being dispatched to an off site location for printing. This results in two bundles being developed; one at the passport office waiting to be dispatched to the printing site, and one at the printing site waiting to be dispatched back to the passport office for collection by applicants.
Many applicants queue up daily at the passport office to check if their passports are ready and if so, hopefully collect them. This means applicants will queue up for several days in a row until they physically obtain their passports.
The congestion and uncertainty at the passport office has bred some peculiar behaviour patterns. Applicants tend to hang around the passport offices to follow passport officers in an effort to ensure that their applications are steadily going through the processing cycle and are not forgotten or lost. Some self appointed passport application agents will stand in the long queues on behalf of applicants to keep a slot in the slow moving queue. A small fee is levied for this service and other such services that take the pressure off the applicants in the passport application pipeline.
There are some opportunities for the passport office to operate more efficiently and effectively through some basic reorganization of processes and dissemination of relevant information to the public.
The current status of having passport officers stationed at the ground floor foyer is clearly not working well. It would be more efficient and effective for two or three officers to stand at the entrance to the staircase and check every applicant’s documents before they are allowed to go upstairs to the payment counters. This would reduce the rejection rate to zero at the counters and reduce the payment process from ten minutes per applicant to less than five minutes. This exercise would increase processing throughput by more than 100 percent.
The passport office would see some order in the various offices and a reduction of applicants milling around the corridors would allow officers to concentrate on processing applications. This improvement in focus within the passport office would also result in an increase in productivity of more than 100 percent.
Another improvement in operations can be in the area of disemination of information. Each batch of passports delivered to the passport office for collection by the public could be accompanied by a list with names and passport numbers. The list could be displayed on a notice board in an appropriate room so that every applicant can check if their passport is ready for collection. If the passport is on a list then the applicant has good reason to go upstairs to queue and collect their passport. If not, then the applicant need not wait but come back the next day to check on the board again. This exercise can even be computerized and beamed with a data projector onto a big screen for all to see and read. The data projector option allows for real time updating of the collection list much like those in airports showing flight arrivals and departures. This is nothing too complicated or impossible to do.
The above measures do not require any financial investment but simply some human resource rearranging and systems management in order to double or treble productivity in passport processing.
At the moment cross border traders are spending sleepless nights trying to obtain a passport to earn a living. Many business travelers are opting to secure a travel document whilst the passport is being processed. Much wastage of time, material and money is being experienced by business people as they scramble to travel to make some money to pay rents, school fees, medical bills and buy food for the family.
The overload at the passport office has resulted in files being lost or misplaced, passports not being collected because many applicants have opted to apply for a travel document in addition to the passport, and several mistakes may be made on the data in passports issued such that the passport holder could find themselves detained in other countries due to inconsistent information on their travel documents.
The Ministry of Home Affairs is part of the civil service. As such, the Ministry should design its processes around the needs of the people and not for the people to be made to comply with the fancies of the Ministry.
There is much business that is being lost by businessmen and women that are spending untold hours at the passport office waiting for their documents to come through. This can be avoided and steps should be taken immediately to address this bottleneck that is choking trade between Zambia and the outside world.
Published 16 June 2009
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