Chamoto
JF-Expert Member
- Dec 7, 2007
- 8,577
- 18,774
Well, there are a number of things, first you don't just get a passport in Tanzania, you need to have a trip. And to get a biometric passport you need a national ID (unless you live abroad). And it takes time to get one especially for people who don't have the right documentation. Plus, you also need at least one parent's birth certificate (they used to accept a male parent passport)
In Tanzania there are a lot of people who use their fathers first name as their last. So when people at NIDA (National ID) find a mismatch between a father and a child's last names they'll put that application on hold. This usually takes several months to complete and most people just give up.
So you can see that there are a lot of hoops to jump through, to get a passport in Tanzania.
Before 2016, it used to be easy to get one, (with bribe money of course) which resulted in so many people from other countries holding our passport. Some of these people were criminals and painted a bad picture of our country when ever they got caught with drugs. To tackle that, the government made it extremely hard to get a new one even for those who need to renew.