Attitudes of employees at the office of the Registrar-General It emerged in all the focus groups that the employees at the Registrar-General’s office are largely rude and unhelpful. The treatment reported ranged from general neglect and ignoring of the public seeking assistance, to outright rude remarks directed at individuals. One woman stated: “We have a big challenge with the people at the RG’s office; they neither acknowledge people’s presence nor treat others in a respectful manner when people are making enquiries. They are not working the way they should as people who work with the public.” "Sometimes the officials at the RG’s office have the tendency to make errors and they make the public pay to rectify them as if it is the public that made those mistakes in the first place." Citizens are aggrieved with the service they get. The processes are not as speedy as they should be, and there seems to be a deliberate effort to frustrate citizens in a bid to elicit bribes for quicker service. "I took my passport in 2003. There were very few passport officers then, but now there are so many of them yet people are still sleeping at the R-G's office. You are not protected in any way. The majority of these people sleeping there are women exposing them to the dangers of being robbed, raped, killed or beaten. Can this be addressed in any way?" The women’s views resonated with previous reports detailing the extent of delays and the long queues at the R-G’s office.7 Some people have been denied passport renewal as they appeared dead in the system of registries because of mistakes made by employees at the R-G’s office. For instance, a Mutare man was denied passport renewal because a death record with all his details had been filed at the R-G’s office, yet, upon closer scrutiny, it emerged that the R-G’s office had misspelt the name of the actual deceased person. 8 Recommendations  The RG’s office should strengthen its complaints procedure to enable public grievances with the employees at the Registrar’s office’s conduct to be scrutinised and addressed in order to improve the service proffered to the public  The Code of Conduct of employees at the RG's office should become more than just a mere document presented to them, and to which they give a cursory glance when they are first recruited, it should be 7 Gugulethu Nyazema, “ Passport Office: Will queues ever disappear?“ The Daily News, 8 Janury 2012http://www.dailynews.co.zw/index.php/features/49-featured/6404-passport-office-will-queues-everdisappear.html. 8 Patrice Makova, “Mudede eposes as ‘ghost’ seeks passport,” The Zimbabwe Mail, 15 April 2012, http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/11320-mudede-exposed-as-%E2%80%98ghost%E2%80%99-seekspassport.html.