Home Affairs Minister Steven Kampyongo has announced that Zambia is in the process of modernising the issuance of passports to electronic, in a bid to ease the movements of people in the SADC region.

Kampyongo said Zambia had so far engaged the South Africa to formulate frameworks that would allow authorities to easily facilitate the movements of people and goods between the two countries.

Speaking in Pretoria, South Africa, Kampyongo said preparatory engagements between the two countries to modernise passports to electronic followed the establishment of a bi-national commission which was recently signed by President Edgar Lungu and his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa.

According to Naomi Nyawali who is first secretary at the Zambian High Commission in South Africa, Kampyongo said a memorandum of understanding was expected to be signed soon once the consultation process was finalised.

He hoped that the modernisation of civil rights registration and electronic passports would spur development in the SADC region as skills transfer among countries would easily be facilitated especially among the youth.

Kampyongo has since called on some Zambians living in South Africa who do not have adequate immigration documents to legalise their stay in that country in order to avoid inconveniences once the electronic passports come into effect.

Kampyongo is in South Africa to hold bilateral talks with his Home Affair counterpart and Minister of Police in that country as a follow up process of the agreements which were recently signed during South African President’s visit to Zambia.