ELLEN MLAMBO

TWO NATIONS REPORTER

BEITBRIDGE – Renovations of a former immigration and customs building to be used as a passport office in the border town of Beitbridge are complete except for ablution facilities, Mat South Provincial Registrar Edna Muringa has said.

The office with eight cubicles which can handle eight applications at a time will be convenient for millions of Zimbabweans staying across the border in South Africa since Beitbridge is the closest town.

Staff is already being trained in preparation for the opening although Two Nations could not get the exact date. Beitbridge will become the fourth district to have a passport office after Murehwa, Hwange and Chitungwiza

Muringa said that the renovations whose cost was not disclosed were completed on Tuesday this week. 

Muringa said this when she addressed stakeholders during a monitoring and evaluation tour of the 100 days projects, National Development Strategy NDS1 activism at the passport this week. Government’s plan is for each Province to have one district with passport offices.  

Passport issuance in Mat South was only done in Gwanda and establishing a passport office in Beitbridge was a necessity since the province is expansive, said Muringa

Mat South shares boundaries with Midlands, Bulawayo, Mat North, Masvingo and national boundary with Botswana and South Africa.

“A huge population of Zimbabwe stays in South Africa and they are supposed to get passports from Mat South so Beitbridge comes as a strategic district to have passport offices. There were times when we were doing 25 passport applications per day and some people will have travelled from Beitbridge and arrived after we will have already reached limit, that was a sad scenario considering the distance they travelled,” said Muringa.