The Ministry of Internal Affairs has directed former ministers and Members of Parliament who lost their seats in the recent elections to immediately return their diplomatic and service passports, saying the privileges attached to the travel documents cease once an individual leaves public office.
Speaking to journalists, Ministry spokesperson Simon Peter Mundeyi said diplomatic and service passports are issued strictly in accordance with the law and are only valid for individuals actively serving in designated government positions.
Mundeyi emphasized that former legislators are no longer entitled to use service passports after the expiry of their term of office and should instead apply for ordinary passports.
“I now call upon the former members of Parliament who have been holding service passports. Now that their term of office has ended, that honourable title also ends, and it ends with that passport,” Mundeyi said.
“So, we do not expect that they use these passports after that. Former members of Parliament should return those passports, and then we issue them ordinary passports,” he added.
The ministry revealed that a number of former ministers have already complied with the directive by returning their diplomatic passports, paving the way for the issuance of ordinary travel documents.
“We have some former ministers returning their passports. They are very law-abiding. We got some of them returning diplomatic passports, and we are preparing to issue them with ordinary passports,” Mundeyi said.
He explained that while MPs were initially issued service passports with a validity period extending beyond their parliamentary term, the documents were never intended to confer privileges after an individual ceased holding office.
“These passports are given within the law. The law says members of Parliament are given service passports. Ordinarily, we would have issued them passports lasting five years, but we did not do it then. So we issued passports whose validity was running for ten years,” Mundeyi explained.
He noted, however, that the validity period of the passport does not override the legal requirement that entitlement to the document is tied to active service in public office.
Mundeyi expressed confidence that the remaining former legislators and officials would voluntarily comply with the directive without the need for enforcement measures.
“I think these members are honourable enough to know that their term of service has ended. We are not going to run after them. They are going to return these passports,” he said.
“Some of them, by the way, have returned the passports. I do not have the statistics here, but they have returned the passports and we have already issued them ordinary passports. Those who have not yet returned them, I am optimistic they will do so and we give them the passports that they deserve,” he added.
The government aims to ensure strict compliance with regulations governing the issuance and use of diplomatic and service passports, which are reserved for designated state officials carrying out official government duties.
