By Linda Kwanjana

After months of logistical hitches in the production of passports for Malawians, the new supplier, Madras Security Private Printers,  has hit the ground running producing an average of 1000 passports per week. 

Recently, there has been an air of discontent from some Malawians due to the intermittent supply chain of passports, forcing some to go for weeks and months without accessing the coveted travel document.

The new supplier says it will clear the backlog in the shortest possible period for all applicants across the country starting with the maiden thousand batch.
Over the years, the government of President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has been cleaning the mess that for many years prior to his election in 2020 rocked the Malawi Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services.

The choice of suppliers was mainly determined by the amount of kickbacks they were willing to give to public office bearers.
Upon assuming office, Chakwera quickly moved in to clean the system by among other things terminating deals that had been arrived at in dubious ways and were only serving interests of corrupt officials. At the time, the passport supplier was Techno Brain.

Malawi’s Attorney General, Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda, once argued that the Techno Brain contract was not supposed to be signed in the first place because it was fraught with irregularities.
Such a transition had thrown the entire service delivery off balance, creating anxiety among those who had applied for passports from across the country.
Madras Security Private Printers is the second supplier to be hired by the administration after local firm E –Tech was given a chance to prove their mettle.

The 42-year old India-based company was hired primarily for its international track record in offering end-to-end IT leaning solutions in Biometric and Security printing.     
Government backed the decision saying it was the viable option to end the passport crisis once and for all.

The new passport regime comes with distinct elements such as a new passport with security features that meet requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organisation and total system control by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services.
This is in contrast with previous suppliers who held on to most of the key systems of the value chain, rendering Malawians helpless in the oversight of their own system.

Save for their impeccable track record, another aspect that made Madras Printers more convenient for a small economy like Malawi was the amount Treasury was going to spend to acquire globally-accepted passport printing services.  
Madras Security Private Printers was offered a $29.9 million (K52.7 billion) contract in January 2025, a clear downward trajectory as compared to the Techno Brain contract, signed in March 2019, which was pegged at $60.8 million (about K106.3 billion).

Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda cancelled the contract due to alleged poor handling by the former governing Democratic Progressive Party administration.