THE Cabinet has authorised the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration to increase the validity period of the three categories of Namibian passports from the current five years to 10 years.
The minister of information and communication technology, Stanley Simataa, at a media briefing on Cabinet resolutions on Thursday said passports were costly to acquire and people who did not regularly travel would now have more time to make use of their passports.
“I am sure you are aware that for us to produce our passports we are spending money and it is a lot of money and given the shorter period in terms of validity, surely there is no utility,” said Simataa.
Asked about the revenue passports generate for the government, the minister said what citizens pay for a passport is much less than the cost of issuing one.
“What you are paying for the passport currently is just a fraction of the cost that the government pays to have them in the country,” he said.
Simataa added that the extension of the validity period to 10 years would be more cost effective in the long run.
The extended validity period will come into effect in January 2020, according to the ministry’s public relations officer, Salome Kambala.
The three categories of passports are national, diplomatic and official passports.
– Nampa
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