The Federal Government has explained its decision to maintain the current passport fee for Nigerians living abroad, unlike the recent increase implemented for those residing in the country.
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The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, made this clarification while speaking to newsmen in Abuja.
Tunji-Ojo explained that the booklet used for Nigerian passports is imported and priced in dollars, meaning that as the naira-to-dollar exchange rate rises, the cost of the passport will also increase.
However, he noted that since Nigerians living abroad already deal in foreign currencies like the dollar, there is no need for an upward revision of their passport fees, so the price remains unchanged for them.
The Minister added that the goal of their ministry is to provide service, and not add to the burden of Nigerians with increase in prices.
“The booklet is imported which is dollar denominated. And at a time when you look at conversion rate of the dollar, there is no way the old price wouldn’t have led to subsidy. As a matter of fact, it was leading to subsidy.
“And we cannot do that. That’s why you realize that we didn’t increase the price of the passport in diaspora because the passport price in diaspora is dollar-dominated. Regardless of exchange, it has no effect.
“We are not looking at making profits off Nigerians. We are looking at serving the people. But when you look at how much a passport is supplied for beyond the logistics and the immigration officers, and convert it to naira, you’ll realize that the price when dollar N400 and when dollar is now N1,600 cannot be the same. That’s why we increased it from N34,000 to N60,000.
“When you look at even the rate of increase in terms of the exchange rate, the rate is lower.We increased to about 45%, but meanwhile the exchange rate has increased even more than that,” Tunji-Ojo said.
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