Yesterday, a report in the state run daily The Herald, reported that the Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede announced the availability of Zimbabwean passport application forms on his department’s website. Though the website was offline for most of yesterday, the website is up now and the application form can be accessed. The website also has other information to assist visitors to interact with the Registrar General’s department.
In addition, the department has introduced SMS notifications for when applications can collect their processed documents. The applicant’s mobile number is collected on the application form. Mudede says the SMS platform, which he refers to as “a top-of-the-line SMS solution”, will be piloted in the coming days.
The form is basically a protected PDF document with controls that prohibit users from being printed before all its required sections have been filled in. One can download and fill in the form offline. Even though it can be downloaded, Once filled in, the form is submitted at the usual passport offices and, strangely, the applicant is required to pay US $33 for the form on submission.
Strange because, seeing the government doesn’t have to print the forms itself to ‘sell’ them to applicants, is there still enough justification to sell the forms? We think the forms should just be free! We also look forward to more significant developments like allowing the applicants to submit the form online, pay online and only go to the Registrar’s office to have their photo taken and added to the database. That would surely help make the nightmare that the process currently is, go away. The SMS notifications too, if it works very well, is a big deal and will save applicants a significant time and money.
While the looks of the website are nothing to be proud of (the designers among you will be disappointed) the step to take interaction with government online is welcome.
Update: Even though the form can be downloaded and filled offline as indicated above, we have just been notified that this is certainly not the intended method. In fact, the Registrar General says it outright in the Herald story that the form cannot be downloaded:
The form cannot be downloaded empty. The passport application form cannot be saved on the local computer.
update: We just posted a related article on the issues the site is having staying up.
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41 comments
its a good move taken by the RG but it doesn’t address any of the problems we are facing today. Downloading a form that i will still pay for is not so ideal, instead if i have to download the form i have to be exempted from paying it. After all i have used my money to print the forms whether at home or in an internet cafe`. The other thing is i still have to go join the queue when i download the forms which doesn’t change the current scenario of long queues..
From my own point of view nothing has changed, its still the same old system which has been decorated by allowing applicants to queue with forms in their hands. Im also disappointed by the website designers, seriously we got very good designers in Zim who can do a better job than what we have been shown on their website.
I hope they are still working on giving more services via their website.
l agree, the web design is painfull to the eye, especially when you hover a mouse with clicking
….and for the record, thez nothing “innovative” about this development. They created a problem where a passport form is gold, and now they r fixing that problem and they wanna appear to be creative….
Is it $33 or $3 ???
$3
The Herald story says $33. http://www.herald.co.zw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54694%3Apassport-office-goes-digital&catid=37%3Atop-stories&Itemid=130
Please tell us which one is the correct fee then. We appreciate the effort done by Herald in finding the fee, but is it the correct one.
The best people to clear it would be the RG’s office. Contact them
Proving fruitless so far. Phones going unanswered. Contact form on website not working. Anyone with a mobile number we can use?
when i paid for my ordinary passport earlier this year it was clearly stated thaat the form fee is $3 and and passport application is $50.. its a pity they keep the receipt wen u collect ur passport… maybe things have changed since then…. im not saying its confirmed but thats what was stated on my receipt in March this year
Several years late and still minimal in the e-government service (a lot of countries have full online document application services) but a welcome step none the less. hope more is to come. Very glad Zimbabwe is beginning to embrace the internet for more than just social networking
If Nelson Chamisa and his cronies were doing their job, Zimbabwe could be one of the African countries that prides itself in making things happen thru eServices….we are the second most literate country in Africa (after Tunisia) but we are not using any of that literacy to make our life easy…shame on us!
Mudede should have done this more than a decade ago, and saved people a lot of frustrations! Same with all other government applications forms!! Its time we embrace technology to make life simpler. Its time for eServices, from gvt to the private sector!!
This site has been hard to access since I saw the story yesterday and I was happy when I noticed that google has a cached copy of the site then from their I was able to find the direct link rather than going through the RG’s homepage the link is http://www.rg.gov.zw/index.php/forms/passport .Although you cannot save the filled in copy of the form you can most certainly download it fill it out later the file 1.5MB not too big at all, I’m curious to know though if they are strict on colour print or a black and white print will be fine
Congratulations Zimbabwe…One step ahead but the server is saying “503 Service UnavailableNo server is available to handle this request.”
its DoS we are causing by going there, l thought l was the only one!
that makes a lot of sense. maybe we should go & apply for work and use the screen shot as reference. 😉 i.e. if the salaries are no longer 200bucks across the board.
200 bucks plus all the free time you want to think about your problems.
the problem is where have too many zealots.People were busy complaining about them not being online but not giving them specifics or proposals so they did the best they could. But its not an excuse though.
Whats going with the TTCS and e gvnrmt thing heard you can actually pay for some of the services online (liqour and business license, i think) and track you application via the ministry website.
I guess they want to recover the fees they paid for printing black and red forms nut a pdf form for $33! even $3! Pakuda kaflawless mobile submission system maQ anopera aya. Security of data and integrity is however an issue.
It is good sign because most of their work will get simpler; not only this if we have every service online it will be very easy to access.It’s late but very good decision by the government.
Free
sample forms
Is this Chamisa’s doing? Clap hands for the young man.
well thats a sign that young, efficient, freshblood is seeping into the clogged systems in the country>as decision makers! Winds of change!
At least they have made some technological advancement
With all our expertise in Zimbabwe i thought we would make a better looking website for our own country on such an important office. I had grief getting the application for through IE even when in Adobe is up to date as well as my IE. I like the idea, much appreciated but i cant help but feel that the RG was ripped off because the website quality is rather rubbish and i know government tenders dont come cheap. I am no web developer but i have seen nice stuff Zimbabweans do that has splendid functionality, this is not it!
THE home page link is very poor to be frank enough, thanks be to google for providing a catch of it. better. the form is not showing fully how can one print only a small part of the form together with some unnccesary internet refuse. what we want is the form of which is too expensive. when is Zimbabwe maturing in handling national matters………….?
great strides! but try to improve a bit
Its a step in the right direction. We can’t expect miracles overnight. BTW you’ll need to use Explorer to download the form. I tried with other browsers. bwaaahhh.
great developing zim…but l feel the website is not really as clear..maybe for us the unwell educated
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Ndizvo zvatisingadi manje, this is more like spamming. please find other ways of letting your organisations known. This is really bad!
Filled and printed one 2 months ago, but the officers at the RG’s office not even sure that they are meant to accept and process it, so to date am still being pushed to pay for and fill the $50 form they sell you.
Can anyone advise who or where these are meant to be submitted.
but the form doesn’t download, it always says “be patient while form downloads” for ever. I somehow got the form, what’s the next step? The consulate in J’burg don’t answer phones, like NEVER!
Anyone who has managed to download the form, can you please email it to witnessmakono@gmail.com
please anyone who got the form can you email me to emuswere@gmail.com ,,thanks in advance am failing to access it on the website
but they is no forms i tried it its giving me this To view this form you need:
Internet Explorer and the latest version of Adobe Reader.
Please update your browser.
i do have latest adobe reader and IE my browser up to date but no form
[…] Now you can get the Zimbabwean passport form online – … – Yesterday, a report in the state run daily The Herald, reported that the Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede announced the availability of Zimbabwean passport …… […]
Holy crap what is internet explorer?
kkkkkkkkk
A great achievement,I really appreciate their effort.
let’s give them enough time very soon they will make it that all the forms will be submitted through online and reduces the stress of long queues as well as attending your problem of paying $3.
Kana Paine vakadownloder wo maforms emapassport ngaanditumirewo please giftmoyana@gmail. com
Kana Paine vakadownloder wo maforms emapassport ngaanditumirewo please bongozeal@live.co.uk