The Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security has made further progress in improving service delivery when it launched online applications for passports and short-term employment permits yesterday.
Over the past few years, the ministry has introduced e-passports in 2018, visa-on-arrival, the inauguration of the state-of-the-art headquarters and the national migration policy. Less than a month ago, the usage of ID-cards as travel documents between Namibia and Botswana was added.
Minister Albert Kawana announced that the ministry will continue to expand its digital services, including online visa applications for tourists, by the end of the year to keep up with the fast-growing digital world as well as attract more tourists to the country.
During the launch in Windhoek, he emphasised the importance of embracing technology to achieve global best-practices and the Namibian government’s reform initiative by adopting e-governance.
The minister said these services will reduce the cost to clients, and enable the ministry to achieve more with less. “Thus, having devised and deployed online technology, we will add more services online, in addition to work-visa and passport applications.
With the escalating and exorbitant costs of IT service providers, we have harnessed and capitalised on our own internal capabilities from our IT units to realise this vision,” he added. The work-visa application allows applicants to complete all relevant forms and upload all required documents online.
Completed and submitted forms and documents will be received, considered and responded to online. Payments can also be done online via Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).
For passports, applicants only need to complete the application form, while all other required documents, such as IDs and birth certificates, will be imported automatically through system integration. Kawana furthermore acknowledged that the public previously had little confidence and trust in the ministry due to factors such as a lack of transparency, poor service delivery and long queues. However, with improved service delivery, it now takes only two to three days to process a passport, or three hours in an emergency.
A national identity document takes one to two weeks to process, and a duplicate takes only one to two weeks. “All of these achievements were made despite severe economic headwinds, which were mainly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said, adding that the ministry is determined to improve its services even further.
“We are constantly benchmarking our services with those countries which are regarded as
advanced in efficient service delivery,” Kawana noted. All the options are available through the ministry’s online portal.