Maputo — The Mozambican immigration authorities have suspended the issuing of passports until 1 April this year, when biometric passports, that can be read electronically, should become available.

A source in the office of Interior Minister Jose Pacheco, cited in Wednesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", said that the immigration services are currently issuing only emergency travel documents to allow people to travel within the southern African region.

As for those people who have to travel to countries where the emergency document cannot be used, the Immigration services will make an exception and issue one of the current passports.

"For those countries that will not accept the emergency travel document we will issue the ones currently in use, but we always advise people to wait for the issuing of the new passports that, in principle, should start on 31 March", he said.

According to the same source, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) recommends that all countries across the world should use biometric passports as part of the efforts to enhance security, particularly against terrorism.

This recommendation was subscribed by the member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and it should enter into force on 1 April. According to ICAO these stricter security measures were also dictated by the forthcoming football World Cup to take place in South Africa this year.

The source added that the Interior Ministry has been working with the Belgian company hired to issue the passports, Semlex, to speed up the installation of the necessary equipment. This might bring forward the issuing of the new passports by 22 March, a week before the ICAO recommendation is due to enter into force.

On the cost of the new passport to the public, the source said that this issue is still under discussion, and a decision is to be taken within the next few days.

"What was agreed was that the new biometric passport enters into use as from 1 April. Now I must explain that those people who already have passports must change them because they will no longer be accepted. This is the main reason why we suspended the issuing of the passports now in use", said the source.

"One should not think that the passports currently in use will remain so until they expire. No! What we are saying is that the current passport will no longer be valid as from 1 April, and the biometric document enters immediately into force", the source claimed.

This would mean that the hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans who hold the current passports will have to change them years before their expiry date, which promises to be a bureaucratic nightmare, albeit a very lucrative one for Semlex.

The Semlex contract has proved highly controversial. The independent daily "O Pais" revealed details in January, which showed massive price hikes planned for identity documents, with most of the money going, not to the Mozambican treasury, but into Semlex's pockets.

Semlex is already issuing biometric identity cards. An identity card for an adult used to cost just 50 meticais (less than two US dollars). Under the Semlex deal, it now costs more than three times as much - 180 meticais. The proposed cost of a passport soars from 150 to 300 meticais to 3,000 meticais. This is higher than any of the current range of statutory monthly minimum wages. (However, judging from the source cited by "Noticias", the government may be rethinking this price).

The table published by "O Pais" puts the new price of a visa at 75 US dollars, and the price of a residence card for foreigners (DIRE) at an astonishing 1,000 dollars.

And most of this money will go to Semlex - 60 per cent in the case of passports and DIREs, and 83 per cent in the case of identity cards. In foreign currency terms, each ID card costs six dollars, five of which go to Semlex.

Wednesday's edition of "O Pais" contains further details on the contract, which indicate that it is an extremely poor deal for the Mozambican state. Thus, if the contract is cancelled, Semlex will be entitled to claim enormous compensation - but there is no clause envisaging similar compensation for the state, if Semlex decides to pull out of Mozambique, or otherwise causes losses for the state.

The contract with Semlex is for an initial period of ten years, during which Semlex is expected to invest a minimum of 100 million dollars.

Semlex has no prior experience in southern Africa, but it has produced a range of identity documents for the west African states of Chad, Mali, Ivory Coast and Gabon.