On Monday the Zimbabwean Consulate in South Africa announced that they would now be opening on weekends starting from 3 October to 17 October. This exercise is being done in order to help mitigate the continued high demand for passport, birth, death and other registration papers in South Africa. The backlog is probably a result of restricted operating hours during the days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The consulate was also at pains to point out they do not have any agents who operate outside their official offices. A lot of people often fall pretty to scammers claiming to be “official” agents for the consulate who can speed up their applications.

Below is the full message from the consulate.

SPECIAL INTERVENTION AIMED AT DEPLETING THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE AND PASSPORT APPLICATIONS BACKLOG: 3 TO 17 OCTOBER 2022

Please be advised that the Consulate will carry out a special consular intervention in response to a continued high demand for birth certificate registration and passport applications in South Africa. The exercise will stretch from 3 to 17 October 2022.

During this period, the Consulate will be operating as follows: –

• Open every day, including Saturdays and Sundays, from 0730 to 1600 hours for birth certificate and passport applications.

• Increase the number of appointments from 400 to 1000 per day, at a pace of 100 bookings per hour.

• As usual, the booking platform will open for new bookings every Wednesday at 1600 hours.

• Applicants are strongly encouraged to adhere to the allocated time given the need to manage the number of people within the Consulate premises at any given time ALL EARLY ARRIVALS WILL BE TURNED BAG

• Clients seeking other services such as Temporary Travel Documents 17TD), Cancellation of Passports, Authentication of Documents among others, still do not require prior booking in order to access service they will however be assisted strictly during weekdays between 0900 and 1130 hours.

• Clearances for the repatriation of human remains for burial in Zimbabwe will continue to be strictly processed during weekdays via the existing electronic platforms.

Please take note of the following.

• All consular appointments are free of charge

• The Zimbabwe Embassy in Pretoria and the two Consulates, namely, Zimbabwe Consulate in Johannesburg and the Zimbabwe Consulate in Cape Town, do not have agents who act on their behalf.

• To book for an appointment, clients should use the following link: https://www.zimbabweconsulate.co.za/appointment

• Clients are advised to strictly use the identity details of the person requiring service when scheduling an appointment.

For further interaction with the Consulate on all issues of mutual interest, please use the following official channels:-

• Facebook page: ZImbabweconsulate Boeing Rood Bedfordview

• Twitter: Zimbabweconsulatejhb

• WhatsApp: +27828249435

• Emal: [email protected]

• Website: www.zimconsulate.co.zw

The latest census results from ZIMSTAT show that there are just under a million Zimbabweans living in the diaspora. Over 80% of these live in South Africa which is easy to understand given the fact that it is the closest county we have that is doing relatively well and has a larger economy.

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