immigration department’s Public Relation Officer Joseph Chauwa
By Daisyderater Chaputula
BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-The Malawi’s immigration department says that the process of Permits will no longer be done manually but electronically starting from 19 February, 2019.
According to the immigration department’s Public Relation Officer Joseph Chauwa, every foreigner has to state the reason why they are coming into the country.
Chauwa said that there are categories of permits that they are provide and the people were required to submit hard copy documents that are required for that particular permit.
“Every foreigner in the country holds a file within our offices so it has been a challenge in the sense that if we have to do any process on the actual application or when the application expires and the person wants to renew the permit we have to go and get the original file.
“Sometimes the files will be missing since they have to be moved manually from one point to another hence they ending up being misplaced and it is difficult to trace,” he said.
Chauwa said the department is trying to put all the processes which were done manually in electronic form whereby it will be easy to trace a person’s file because anyone is to access the documents on the computer.
“We want people to submit the applications electronically online and also once their permit is approved we want to have a facility where all payments should be done online”
“Once the permit is issued we give the people a certificate which is also in hard copy but now we want to make it easy instead of a certificate be issuing them with cards like ATM cards which we believe they are more convenient. Our officers in the field will just be scanning the cards and be able to connect with our system”, he explained.
Chauwa advised that for those who do not have access to the internet there will be a desk whereby they will be able to process their documents to be electronic.
The electronic permits were supposed to be introduced in January, 2019 but the process was delayed because the department needed to install equipment’s in some offices.
The project is being funded by Malawi government and World bank.
