The Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services has halted passport printing across the country, The Daily Times has learned.

For almost a month now, Malawians seeking passport services have not been assisted.

Immigration spokesperson Wellington Chiponde has confirmed the development.

“We indeed experienced some technical challenges with our passport issuance system a few days ago, to the extent that we were not issuing passports at full production capacity.

“However, we have made great progress in rectifying the technical issues and printing of passports is expected to return to full production over the weekend,” Chiponde said.

Other sources have informed us that the problem arose as the government is addressing the issue of the new passport system supplier.

When we visited the Immigration headquarters in Blantyre Thursday, we found that the department has only been issuing passports to emergency applicants.

One person we encountered, who wished to remain anonymous, said that he had been visiting for the past two weeks without receiving assistance.

“I applied for a passport last year and when I came to check, I was told they had network issues. When I returned today, I was informed of the same problem,” the applicant said.

The development comes as the government has yet to find a new supplier for the passport system.

A three-month extension of the contract between the government and E-Tech Systems ended in November last year.

The contract had been extended after the initial one expired in August.

Government officials have not disclosed who is supplying the passport system at present.

However, our sources suggest that discussions are ongoing about whether to re-engage E-Tech or find another supplier.

“As you are aware, there have been issues with the capacity of the current supplier, as their passports have been rejected. Officials are still discussing how to proceed, hence the suspension of passport printing,” a source said.

Director General of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority, Eddingtone Chilapondwa, told us yesterday that the authority had handled the procurement issue for the new supplier.

“We have advised Immigration on what to do and you can verify this with them,” Chilapondwa said.

E-Tech was identified as the replacement for Techno Brain Limited, whose contract was terminated.

This suspension also followed the halt of passport printing services across the country after the system was allegedly hacked. However, the firm faced criticism as its capacity was found to be insufficient.

This was