29,000 passports disappear

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:23:58 +0000

 Over 29,000 Zambian passports have disappeared

The 32 –paged Zambian passports valued at over K9 billion disappeared from passports office in 2010 and to date there has been no explanation on how the documents were lost.

According to the latest audit report, 366 000 passports were issued in the year in question but only 336.026 were accounted for, the rest simply disappeared.

The report further said that the passports that were not accounted for were those that were issued at K320, 000.

But when contacted Home affairs permanent secretary Max Nkole declined to comment stating that the loss occurred before he assumed office.

The auditor general’s office has insisted that to date the passports have not been properly issued and accounted arguing that the report was sent three times to the passport office without being denied.

Many foreigners especially West Africans have been caught travelling on Zambian passports.

Recently a notorious murderer who was on the most wanted list in the United States of America, Abraham Mpaka, a Nigerian was travelling on a Zambian passport.