US TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS ON ZAMBIANS DUE TO POOR CIVIL REGISTRATION PROCESSES – KAMPYONGO

US TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS ON ZAMBIANS DUE TO POOR CIVIL REGISTRATION PROCESSES – KAMPYONGO

FORMER Home Affairs Minister Stephen Kampyongo says the country cannot blame the US for imposing travel restrictions, stating that the sanctions are as a result of Zambia’s poor civil registration processes.

Last week, the United States government announced that effective January 1, 2026, entry into the United States for Zambian citizens on B1/B2 visitor visas will be suspended.

The travel restrictions were imposed following an Overstay Report, which revealed that Zambia had a B-1/B-2 visa overstay rate of 10.73 percent and an F, M and J visa overstay rate of 21.02 percent.

Kampyongo argues that many foreign nationals obtain Zambian documents, travel to the US and commit crimes which then paints a bad light on the country.

In an interview, Monday, Kampyongo said the country’s manual civil registration process, especially for NRCs was flawed.

“The challenge we have is that, we [as a] country have poor civil registration processes, which have been largely manual. Now we embarked on a process to digitalize civil registration, one of the programmes was supported by UNICEF, by the UN agencies and another agency which supported the devolution of birth registration and the computerizing of the same processes. The whole idea was to document citizens from the point of birth up to the point of death. So, capturing all the vital statistics, about our citizens and this would have now culminated into what we called Integrated National Information Registration System, INRIS. So, we did that. By this time we would have even migrated. If you meet me, I can even show you what could have been your national registration card now, automatically generated and all the systems were put in place. All the institutions that have suffered, matters of identity fraud were brought on board, ZRA, financial institutions, banks, pension schemes, because people have been defrauded using the porous identity cards,” he said.

“So, where we have been experiencing problems, I just don’t know why the Minister of Home Affairs and his team have spent all the last five years without concluding that programme because it was almost done. It was launched and like I am telling you, I can even show you a demo of how your NRC should have been looking, because we had to migrate all the manual files, all the manual data, into a digital format. So, we have had cases where people would have come from some countries within Africa, come into Zambia way back when we were issuing manual passports, come and get an ID, and get a passport, those old, manually issued passports, travel to the US, commit a crime there, and when those people were caught, they were deemed to be Zambian citizens. Until we went into the records and back, to get to understand that no, actually this person was not a Zambian national and when they are deported, he would be deported here, then you would get back and deal with them to go back to their countries. So, that’s a danger of not moving speedily in implementing some of the systems”.

He said the Department of National Registration, Passport and Citizenship is supposed to be a reservoir of biometric data of all citizens.

“Whilst we had automated the processes of passports, then the mother of all identities, which is an NRC, which should be linked to the birth registration and certification remained manual, that is why you hear people say, ‘chimutengo NRC’ and what not, because people can even make an NRC, go and get someone’s benefits and vanish. So, you can’t blame the US for those measures, because it is our own… it is our own processes, and that is why, we had done so much before I left office. There was so much progress and we had already started, that we had gotten at the last phase of the programme. You will recall that, by the time I was leaving the ministry, I was chairing the EU. The team of ministers responsible for civil registration and vital statistics. So, that is where we are and you can’t blame it for that, and many other countries will be worried to do with our systems,” said Kampyongo.

“But it is one very vital area of which people don’t look into, the Department of National Registration, Passport, and Citizenship is supposed to be a reservoir of biometric data of all citizens, where you or anyone would go and click using your NRC, chip it in, everything about you can be found in the system.

So, if there are no linkages and someone gets an NRC, saying to be a civilian, goes to another country [such as the] US, that person will be identified as Zambian, that is because of the poor nature of our statistics. A person who has used manual files and registration, it is easy to manipulate such systems and the intent is identity fraud of citizens. So, someone works for many years, gain their dues, pay and someone frauds, gets the fraudulent identity to go and access that money and makes the legitimate owner of the money to start fighting battles”.

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