THE Civil Registry Department says it is on course to clear the passport backlog by September.
Efforts such as the acquisition of modern printing press and other ancillary equipment, to clear the passport backlog were scuttled by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Registrar General Henry Machiri, who spoke to ZBC News, said the civil registry department is working round the clock to clear the passport backlog.
“We are now working on the backlog. We are now doing the 2019 applications and we are hopeful that by September this backlog would have been cleared.
“When we talk of 2019, it doesn’t mean that we have a backlog for 2020 and 2021. Those are the two years under the COVID-19 whereby we were not issuing passports, but we were just dealing with emergencies. Our passport backlog is the last half of 2019,” he said.
