Africa-Press – Lesotho. Lesotho is struggling to issue passports to its citizens after supplies of a security microchip that is critical in the production of passports were hit by the Russia-Ukraine war, thepost heard this week.
Home Affairs principal secretary Tumelo Raboletsi told thepost on Tuesday that the war has made it difficult for Lesotho to source the chips that are needed in the manufacturing of passports.
“I am sure we are all aware that our latest passports have a microchip, which is controlled worldwide,” Raboletsi said.
“So, the production of passports was affected due to the on-going conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”
About half of the world’s semiconductor grade neon and palladium supply comes from Ukraine and Russia. The war between the two countries has severely affected supplies of the commodities.
Raboletsi was responding to questions why Lesotho has been delaying to issue passports to its citizens in the last few years. He said at first, the issuance of a passport would take only up to five days after all new developments were made, until “we had a hiccup”.
Raboletsi said the other problem they were struggling with was that of Basotho who do not collect their passports, leading to the documents piling up in their offices.
He said some who had applied for urgent passports also did not collect the documents. In an effort to control this, Raboletsi said the government hiked the price of a passport from M130 to M630.
“All Basotho know that a normal passport would take only up to five days to be ready,” Raboletsi said.
“You would pay extra only if you needed your passport immediately.” But even after hiking the price of a passports, “they still do not collect their passports”.
“We went as far as publicly announcing the names of passport owners on radio stations,” Raboletsi said.
“We would like to make a special plea to all Basotho to collect their passports on the agreed time.”
Asked why they requested passports that would last for only two months, Raboletsi said they normally look at the previous requests and estimate how the new requests are likely to be.
“We also look at things such as the birth rate and passport usage, some people use their passports daily so that means it won’t last for 10 years,” he said.
The Passport Services director, Mpiko Rafono, said people should call him at 22215929 or 80050074 to avoid going to the passport office from time to time to enquire about their passports.
“We also have an SMS system that notifies people when their passports are ready even though sometimes the system may be down,” Rafono said.
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