She didn’t smile or even try when I greeted her with my cheery best “Good morning, how are you?”. I wasn’t too surprised; working in a windowless box in a government building in a dreary part of town would also have made me dour. I vowed to at least get her to smile before the session was over.
It was only when I went to renew my British passport before a visit to Cape Town in May that I thought to check up on my Zimbabwe passport that I knew was up for renewal this year. Oops, it had already expired. A phone call to a friend, whom I knew had renewed his Zimbabwe passport recently, and I was told it wasn’t too difficult at all and older folk like us even got to use the express queue. I didn’t even have to supply passport photos as it was all done “in house”. I waited until I had no more excuses then told Fabian, my company driver, that he was taking me into town.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been into the centre of Harare and I know that it’s run-down but it was still an education. The once pristine Harare Gardens are overgrown with weeds, the grass hasn’t been cut in ages and the children’s swings and roundabouts are falling over and in need of more than a bit of maintenance. Rubbish abounds.
We got to the entrance of Makombe House where passports are renewed and issued and other government business is done. We were stopped at the entrance amongst a crowd of touts, vendors of sticky treats and drinks, and other hopefuls. Fabian explained to the official in “control” of the melee that I was disabled and needed dropping off closer to the building and we were waved through.
I wandered into the first processing area I could see and looked lost. It wasn’t long before an official told me I was in the births registration area and was directed over to the passports queue. I joined what I thought to be the correct queue and was approached by another official who, after hearing what I needed, directed me to the Emergency Passports office. “Now we’re getting somewhere” I thought.
Fabian arrived from parking the pickup truck and provided valuable assistance. He went off to another office with the form I’d filled in and it soon emerged that I’d not brought all the necessary copies of documents; strangely they wanted to see a copy of my UK passport. It used to be illegal to have dual citizenship in Zimbabwe then a few years ago someone took their case to the constitutional court and it was found that it was not forbidden. Why they needed proof my dual citizenship I’m not sure. A hasty WhatsApp to Marianne and a photo of the relevant page arrived. I was charged 3 US$ for it to be printed out! Eventually all documents were deemed correct and I was shown through to the the windowless box for photographing and fingerprinting.
After trying and failing to get the fingerprint machine to record my prints, trying another office and succeeding we were back in the original box. Another official, slightly less dour, gave me a printout of my photo and personal details – which were wrong. I don’t have brown eyes or black hair. Well what little of the latter is still there is grey, as Fabian reminded me. I looked at the photo and said, in a loud voice, “Who IS this handsome person? I don’t recognize him!”. Both officials erupted in giggles which only got stronger when I added “So what is the joke?”. Mission successful.
A mere two-and-a-half hours after arriving I was finished. I turned down the offer of an emergency passport to be ready in 48 hours for an added US$100 and turned over a mere US$175 for the week later version. No-one asked if I wanted to pay in the local Zimbabwean currency.
On the way out of the car park we passed the original passport office. A colonial era building it was looking more than a little decrepit and didn’t look like it was being used for much. Curiously it still had the old Rhodesian coat of arms molding on the fascia and it had been painted in the not too distant past. We both chuckled at the irony.
The senior foreman at my work was not impressed at the cost of the passport. “They process a least 100 passports a day – what do they do with the 17,000 dollars? Look at the state of the roads and the general filth”. It’s just another symptom of the pervasive corruption that’s endemic in this country.
Zimbabwe Absurdity 
The advantages of differently-abled
25 02 2015Some years back, whilst working in the U.K., I noticed that the word “disabled” was out of fashion. One, and that included me, was “differently-abled”. Hopelessly PC of course and complete nonsense. Differently abled implies that the person afflicted has abilities that others might desire. Right. Hands up all those who might want to fall over more easily. But that’s in the real world. Zimbabwe of course is in another world where these rules don’t always apply and having a disability CAN actually be advantageous.
My Zimbabwe passport expires in April and I’d been procrastinating getting it renewed. It’s been 10 years since I’d jumped through hoops and endured the queues at Makombe Building but things have slowed down a bit at work, my presence is not constantly required there and really I’d run out of excuses. All attempts to download the renewal form on the internet had failed (I’d enlisted the help of others too) and noting that they were open on Saturdays and also having heard that Saturdays were not that chaotic, decided to give it a go. It was inauspicious.
Parking on the street and getting the usual “I’ll look after your car boss” from a hawker of passport folders, I walked in. Having ascertained that Room 3 was the place to buy an application form I discovered that there was no queue. I also discovered that I couldn’t in fact buy a form ($3) until I’d had all my other identification documents certified (birth certificate and National ID) and those offices were closed on a Saturday. I’d have to wait until Monday and come back or get the form from a sub-office in Mount Pleasant (a suburb closer to where I live).
Monday found me at the sub-office in Mount Pleasant. Unfortunately I needed the original of my birth certificate and my ID to purchase the renewal form. Yes, if the internet download site had been working I could have done it for free without any documents! But nobody could tell me why it was not working. I returned later in the week and got the form but ascertained that I needed a new computerised birth certificate and that would require a visit to Market Square in the CBD of Harare. Now I have driven past Market Square and it is straight out of Dante’s Inferno, but with Zimbabwean flavour. Rubbish, touts and endless queues dominate the scenery. I shuddered, was there perhaps another way? Of course there was! An official offered for the princely some of $20 to acquire it for me. It was a no-brainer as the Americans call it. I paid and collected later the next day.
Back to the Makombe building later the next week I mentally fortified myself for long queues and delays. I was pleasantly disappointed. Fast tracked through the first queue due to my disability and not actually finding any other queues to jump, I soon found myself back at Room 3. No, I did not need to buy an application form. But how much did I want to pay for the passport? What, I have a choice? Of course there is a choice; $50 for 6 weeks, $250 for 3 days or $350 for the same day! No, 2 weeks is not an option. Not at all stupid are the Registrar General’s office. They know which option most people are going to opt for and yes, I paid the $250. After only an hour in the Makombe building I walked out assured that my passport would be ready on Monday.
I told the story to Shelton (en Francais). He was more than a bit cynical and told me he knew someone who paid the $250 and it took 4 weeks. In fact another friend who’d paid the $53 ($3 for the form) got it in 2 weeks. I settled down to wait but with a bit of hope as I’d been pleasantly surprised at how well things had gone. It had not been the Makombe building of old.
Yesterday I got a SMS – my passport was ready! Fortuitously I needed to go into town so enlisted the use of a driver from the National Ballet office – parking can be chaotic in that part of town. The parking was easy, the queue formidable and no officials around to fast track me. I guess I will go back this Saturday.
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Tags: Differently abled, Harare, Makombe, passport application, passport renewal
Categories : News & Various, Social commentary