Okay. So we have a new unity government that has started tackling Zim’s problems. We are now transacting in mostly hard currency (considering that any currency apart from the Zim dollar can be considered a hard currency of sorts. Things are changing… most prices have started to come down and this is obviously good for consumers, but whereas businesses are ripping off consumers to a lesser extent, the government is murdering us! Case in point: the cost of replacing a lost ( or more likely, stolen) plastic ID is a shocking USD$50! The cost of changing one’s birth certificate from the out dated shorter versions costs USD$50.
The real shocker is the cost of obtaining or renewing a passport. In South Africa (I’m talking of the most expensive one) it is somewhere around ZAR325, which, at the time of writing, is about USD$33, a friend of mine in Greece told me recently that, to renew her passport she’d have to fork out 22 euros. Canada’s 48 page adults’ passports are in the region of 75 Canadian dollars. In Botswana, I hear that their most costly passport is their P1656 (about USD 208) Jumbo Biometric 32 page document. I have no idea what a jumbo Biometric passport does but Here is Zim’s we find ourselves having to part with a paltry USD$675! Of this amount, USD$20 is just for the application form!! So for most of us, travel is okay, but just not outside the country. The thing is, freedom of movement is considered a right in most parts of the world and is enshrined in their constitutions. This must include the freedom to enter and leave one’s country of origin, but this cannot be the case where passport fees are orbiting somewhere around Pluto, beyond the reach of 95% of Zimbabweans. Could this be a ploy to stem the exodus of skilled labour from the country? Perhaps not, but it really has put a spanner in the works for those wanting to go off to university abroad and for those wanting to shop in South Africa or the UAE. Right now I want to travel on holiday but my passport will cost me more than my ticket? Anyone know how I can teleport myself to the UAE? 
What I’d like to know from you all is how much your passport cost you (if anything). Armed with loads of comparative info, I’d then like to write to our Minister of Home Affairs with a copy to the New Finance Minister (who happens to be the MP of our constituency) to convince them that the current fee system is, at best…utter madness.
