In 2015 I had the opportunity to visit the Government Press premises of an African country. That time I was the Government Printer of Malawi. Weeks before the trip materialized I was required to send my personal details, including an image of the first page of my passport, to them in order to obtain the necessary clearance.
I had to be cleared because I was going to visit a high security facility, which that country’s Government Press was. This was in sharp contrast to the equivalent facility at home, which was open to anybody that wished to visit it, practically at all times. I was to learn that they needed strict security measures because of the nature of some of the work they were doing.
It was an eye opener for me to see the tight security conditions under which our counterparts worked. Not one of the workers was exempted from the frequent security checks as they moved around the factory. Even the Government Printer himself was subjected to the elaborate security checks in the print workshop.
I observed a number of jobs at various stages of completion at the facility. One operation that particularly caught my attention was the production of passports. Yes, that country’s Government Press was producing passports not just for their Immigration Department but also for foreign jurisdictions.
At the time of writing this article, news of the Immigrations Department’s failure to print passports for a number of weeks was in the air. This had naturally led to deep frustrations among the many passport seekers throughout the country. Many planned foreign trips for purposes of trade, education, medical attention, socializing, among others, have had to be put on hold as those seeking their first passports were not able to have them, neither were those who wanted their expired ones renewed.
While conceding a measure of validity to the notion of involving the Immigration Department in passport production, this columnist contends that such a responsibility ought to be entrusted to those possessing a deeper comprehension of the intricacies of printing. Immigration officers, being neither versed in the nuances of software engineering nor proficient in the art of printing, would inevitably approach the task with a superficial grasp at best, given that it lies outside their purview. Their primary mandate resides in the acquisition and authentication of individuals’ personal data, a cornerstone in the adjudication of passport issuance. It is within this realm that their expertise should remain concentrated, as advocated by this commentator.
The Malawian Government Press, like their foreign counterparts, can be entrusted with the responsibility of printing passports. It would, however, be naïve to expect them to became a competent printer of passports within a few months. My proposal should, therefore, not be construed as an immediate solution to the current problem. Rather, it should be understood to be a way to prevent a recurrence of the same, or similar, problem(s) in future.
It would take the Government Press at least one year, by this author’s estimation, for them to be adequately equipped for the security printing operations required for passport production. Specialized pieces of equipment would need to be acquired to make security printing possible. Among these would be an intaglio press to be used for printing highly secure tactile effects similar to those on banknotes. Another indispensable piece of equipment would be a highly sophisticated digital press required for accepting and printing customized data, which is what passports depict. Although all passports are similar, no two passports are the same as each carries customized information. We have adequate local expertise to develop a robust package that handle this aspect of security printing.
An indispensable addition to the inventory would entail a numbering machine of considerable efficacy, adept at inscribing serial numbers on the pages of the passports, while concomitantly perforating the same onto the folios via diminutive apertures of diverse configurations. Next, the establishment would need a machine that can assemble booklets.
The materials used in the passport production would have to be sourced from certified security materials suppliers. Special paper with appropriate security watermarks inserted during production, for example, would have to be used. Specialised ink with luminescence properties when exposed to infrared or ultraviolet radiation would also be needed. It can be done.
Life is full of challenges which require innovative solutions. Many times solutions lie hidden within our own people or our own systems but we spend a great deal of effort and resources trying to import them from external agents. The current passport saga is one of such challenges. We only need to search within our people to find the most appropriate solution.