* Only bona fide members of the Civil Service are in possession of Service Passports in line with the Civil Service Regulations
* Only civil servants between Grades A and H are eligible to hold and use a Service Passport, and only for official government travel
* As President Arthur Peter Mutharika’s administration is on an exercise to sanitise government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)
By Duncan Mlanjira
The government has noted an abuse in the issuance of Service Passports between June 2020 and September 2025 and thus ordered the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services to conduct a verification exercise of all holders of such passports to be done from Monday, October 27 up to November 27.
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In a statement, the Immigration Department indicates that the exercise — to be carried out through controlling officers of all Government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) — aims at ensuring that only bona fide members of the Civil Service are in possession of Service Passports in line with the Civil Service Regulations.
All Service Passports not verified by 27th November, 2025, will be cancelled, says the statement while urging all individuals holding such travel document to submit its numbers to their controlling officers for verification within the stated period.
“Subsequently, controlling officers are expected to submit a list of officers together with passport numbers to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services,” says the statement adding that Immigration Department will only issue the Service Passport when the application is authorised by a controlling officer.
“The Department would like to also reiterate that only civil servants between Grades A and H are eligible to hold and use a Service Passport, and only for official government travel.”
President Mutharika
The President Arthur Peter Mutharika’s administration is on an exercise to sanitise government MDAs and of note is the suspension of parastatal bosses for Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), George Kasakula; Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (MACRA), Daud Suleman; Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA) and National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF), Humphrey Mdyetseni, pending investigations on abuse of power.
Meanwhile, newly-appointed Minister of Industrialisation, Business, Trade & Tourism, George Patridge, has called for a performance-oriented Ministry so that Malawians can begin to see the change they long desire.
He said this in Lilongwe during a briefing with the Ministry’s senior management in which Patridge is reported to have not minced words, saying: “Expectations are many out there — Malawians need to see change.
“The private sector wants to see change but for that to happen we need to change the way we do things. We need a result and output based approach in how we do things; set measurable targets and work on the timelines towards realisation of MW2063,” he is quoted as saying by Malawi Government official Facebook page.
The Minister said the deliberate emphasis by President Mutharika in renaming the Ministry gives a clear signal of its pivotal role in driving Malawi’s economic growth through industrialisation — as such all officers in the Ministry have to hit the ground running.
Reacting to a power-point briefing by management — led by Secretary, Wiskes Nkombezi — Patridge said he was impressed with the brief but wondered as to why all the outlined efforts were not showing results on the ground and in the lives of Malawians.
“Our duty is to ensure that Malawi deals with the 4 Fs — food, forex, fuel and fertilizer — by among others, creating an enabling environment for private sector to thrive; both existing industries and exporters as well as the new ones so that there can be more production.
“And am counting on each one of you here to help me in achieving that,’ emphasised Patridge, while also challenging the management team that as someone coming from the private sector, he is open for new ideas without fear of retribution — outrightly sending a message of an open-door policy in the Ministry.
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