By Engel Nawatiseb
TSUMEB
The Minister of Home Affairs and Immigration, Rosalia Nghidinwa, has warned against issuing national documents to foreigners.
Describing the practice as tantamount to crime, the minister said her ministry decided to raise this concern with strategic partners at all levels to stop the practise particularly among non-government officials.
The concerns raised include issuing of baptism cards to people of foreign origin without indicating that they are foreigners and were only baptised in the country.
Headmen were also issuing testimonials to foreign nationals, and also affidavits acknowledging the identity of persons, and confirming the person was born in Namibia, when in fact they were born elsewhere.
“As you might be aware, the above testimonials and baptism cards are used as source documents for the issuing of late registration of birth for people who due to historic reasons were not issued with birth certificates at the time of birth.
“It goes without saying that these actions have the potential to lead the ministry into issuing national documents to people who do not deserve them,” cautioned the minister.
“Having said that, I would like to single out one area of our operation where we also need your urgent advice and cooperation. You might be aware that, provisions under the Marriage laws permit people other than magistrates to be appointed as marriage officers.
“This provision was intended to shorten the distance for people wishing to get married as they could meet both State and church requirements at the nearest church. This was done with Constitutional provisions under article 14 (1) and (2) in mind.”
She however said it was unfortunate to see that some churches – especially the new ones – are not using this provision for its intended purpose.
“There are many instances of illegal immigrants using some of the churches to quickly get married to Namibian women to avoid deportation. This has resulted in many marriages of convenience.
“Some of these marriages were even conducted in the absence of documents to identify the grooms. Another worrying factor is that some churches, especially new ones, are appointing ordinary church members – who are not ordained pastors – as marriage officers for their churches,” Nghidinwa said.
The minister said Government relied heavily on Regional and Local Authority Councillors, Community and Church Leaders – as the links between the society and Government – to give reliable testimony in applications for national documents.
They would thereby avoid betraying the trust shown by Government in the leadership structures of these bodies.
“It therefore is of utmost importance that you pay attention to the real origin of the persons seeking help through your good offices. We at the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration look forward to a continued and long-lasting working relationship.
“Again there is a need to educate our unmarried people of this danger as some foreign nationals get married to them with the sole purpose of acquiring citizenship and once it has been acquired, it does not even take a day or two to divorce the Namibian spouses.
“Some of these elements went back to their countries of origin and brought with them their original wives,” said the minister.
Nghidinwa urged Namibian citizens to keep their national documents in a safe place so they do not to end up in the hands of people with malicious intent.
The minister recently also inaugurated the regional office of her ministry at Tsumeb.
Speaking at the occasion she said her ministry will continue to manage the national population register and facilitate lawful migration as well as aiding the criminal justice system guided by the principles of efficiency, effectiveness and accountability.
“Our being here today is a continuation of our resolve to bring our services closer to the people within the framework of NDP II and Vision 2030.”
The Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration was established in 2005.
Nghidinwa noted that her ministry had made significant improvement in terms of service delivery in areas such as passports and identification documents (reduced waiting period for passports from 60 working days to 10 working days).
The ministry had also reduced the waiting period of identity documents from two years to 24 working days.
“We have also successfully negotiated the repatriation of birth, marriage and death records of Namibian citizens from South Africa.”
The Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration is in the process of opening additional sub-regional offices in the whole country. It has already started recruiting officials who will manage these sub-regional offices.
Early next year, a new regional office will be opened at Rundu and sub-regional offices at Karasburg, Grootfontein, Ruacana, Mukwe, Okongo, and Kahenge.
The ministry is also in the process of conducting feasibility studies for the remaining sub-regional offices that could not be accommodated this year, such as Tsumkwe, Omuthiya, Okahao, Kamanjab, and Karibib.
“This can be seen as a concise solution to the far rural people that walk long distances to get the services of our ministry. In complementing this effort, we purchased mobile registration vehicles to conduct routine mobile registration for national documents.
“These are special vehicles that are fully equipped with all necessary software to register people in the field and download data to the head office where the identity documents will be printed within a short reasonable time.
“This does not mean that we are going to close our regional and sub-regional offices; no, we will maintain them to cater for daily enquiries and other services,” she said.