The Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security’s executive director, Etienne Maritz said that the increase in fees of national documents was necessitated by various factors, including negligence by applicants.
Maritz in a media statement issued on Thursday said negligence is factually mentioned as a reason based on the situation on the ground, observed over the years.
“The Ministry has recorded a high number of uncollected documents that the public applied for but never collected. As of today, the ministry has a total number of 6 247 uncollected passports, 4 793 uncollected citizenship certificates, and uncollected 69 967 Identification Documents (IDs). We have also recorded alarmingly high numbers of applications for duplicate birth certificates and Ids,” he said.
Maritz added that during the year 2020, a total number of 21 957 duplicate birth certificates were applied for while a total number of 37 792 IDs duplicates were also applied for from January 2020 to date and these documents are procured and printed at a huge cost.
Maritz further stated that fees for visas and permits went up with just about N.dollars 100 or N.dollars 200 and there is no longer a handling fee of N.dollars 80 being charged when applications are submitted.
“This was done to avoid applicants moving between one service counter to payment counter when submitting an application. For those whose applications will be successful eventually, the handling fee has been worked into the approval fee. “The approval of the fees increment went through various approval processes before the gazetting this week. We, therefore, assure the public that much thought went into the decision-making process,” he said.
He added that it must be noted that there have been increases in the procurement of virgin documents used by the ministry, mostly due to inflation over the years.
The ministry on 01 July 2021 announced an increase in fees for services offered and national documents, effective from 19 July 2021.
Source: Namibia Press Agency
