Home Affairs, Cultural and Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe has said that charges for passports have to be increased in line with the interbank rate to enable the office of the Registrar General’s office to operate smoothly.
Speaking after touring the passport office today Kazembe said that it was necessary to increase charges since consumables required in the production of the travel documents are imported.
An ordinary passport currently costs $53 while an emergency passport fetches $253. Reports, however, suggest that there are some officers who are asking for huge kickbacks from desperate passport seekers, something that would see the charges go higher.
The Registrar-General’s office, which has a capacity of producing 4600 passports a day is making only 2000 daily when reports suggest that the office has a huge backlog dating back to 2018.
A passport has become a rare and more valuable commodity for Zimbabweans who are desperate to skip the countries’ borders to escape the continuously biting economy.
More: The Herald