Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security

Today, we will be looking at Reforms initiated in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security whose mandate is to facilitate the provision of a safe and secure environment for Malawians by providing civilian oversight and advisory services to security institutions.

The Ministry is comprised of the Malawi Police Service, Malawi Prisons Service, Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services, the Refugees Department and the National Registration Bureau (NRB). The Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security was one of the seven (7) pioneer Ministries that signed Performance contracts with His Excellency President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika highlighting their proposed Reform areas and making public commitments to deliver on their plans within specified time periods.

Today’s column will focus on reforms being implemented by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services has been implementing the following reform areas:

• Decentralization of Passport Printing Services to Mangochi, Mzuzu andLilongwe.
• Rolling out Passport Services to Malawi Postal Corporation
• Online Visa Application
• Computerisation of the Permit Processing System.

Passport printing was previously confined to Blantyre and this created congestion as people travelled from all corners of Malawi to access the service at one point. The decentralisation of the passport printing services has brought this service closer to the people as passport printing is now taking place in Lilongwe, Mangochi and Mzuzu including Blantyre.

The printing of passports has further been rolled out to Malawi Postal Corporation (MPC) outlets in what is now known as MLAMBE centres in Mangochi and Lilongwe. As a result, Malawians are able to access passports through the Mlambe One Stop Service Centre Immigration Officers in Mangochi and Lilongwe which were launched by His Excellency President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika on 29th March 2018.

The implementation of reforms in the above proposed areas has greatly improved revenue collection and service delivery for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services. The department is now able to surpass its revenue targets set by the Treasury and is also able to issue more passports to Malawians unlike in the past prior to the reforms.

During the 2015/16 Financial Year (FY), the Department was given a target to collect revenue amounting MK4.2 billion but it managed to collect MK 6,877,818,201 billion surpassing its target by 64 percent (%). In the 2016/17 FY, the department was given a MK6.9 billion target but managed to raise MK10, 663,823,820 billion, beating the target by 55%. Similarly, the 2017/18 FY saw the department beating its MK9.5 target by around 9% collecting revenue amounting MK10, 334,754,794.

However, prior to the implementation of the reforms, like in the 2014/15 FY, the Department was given a target of MK4,079,872,208 billion but it only managed to collect revenue of a total of MK3,571,034,718 billion which was an under collection of 12%.The revenue is both from passport fees, various permits fees and citizenship fees. On the other hand, on the part of service delivery, during the 2015/2016 FY, the Department issued a total of 60,799 passports to Malawians.This was preceded by 87,584 passports during the 2016/17 FY. The 2017/18 FY saw a total of 97,975 Malawians being issued with passports.

In addition, before the reforms, most passport applications were being processed after 20 working days with the majority taking an average of 30 working days due to increased workload brought about by the centralized system.

Currently, all passports are being processed at an average time of 20 working days for normal passports, 5 working days for urgent passports and 2 working days for express passports and this is explicitly stated in the Department’s Service Charter.

The On-line Visa application reform was also successfully implemented where an Electronic Visa Application System was developed and is fully functional.

As for the computerization of the Permit Processing System, installation of required systems and equipment is being finalized and the system is expected to be up and running by December 2018.

Basing on the above cited progress, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security through its Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services, has registered significant and notable progress in undertaking its Reforms.

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