14 Aug 2013

Penalty fee for the replacement of lost, stolen or soiled Botswana passport is sanctioned by the Presidential Directive CAB 39/2009 and not any statute, says the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Mr Edwin Batshu.

He told Parliament that the fee was intended to recover costs for replacement of passports lost or soiled through negligence and or fraudulent behaviour on the part of the passport holder.

Mr Batshu said the procedure followed is that an individual, whose passport is lost, stolen or soiled, submits an application for a new passport, together with a statement and a police report on the incident that led to the disappearance or destruction of the passport to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

He said the director would then assess the application and make a recommendation to the minister and where the minister determines that the passport was lost or destroyed through negligence or that there is a possibility of fraud, a P1 000 fee would be levied on the applicant.

He noted that since April 2010, 138 applications for the replacement of lost, soiled or stolen passports have been received and out of this number, 83 applicants were granted a waiver from paying penalty, and 51 applications were rejected while four are still under assessment. He said there is no consideration on the part of government to relax this requirement.

MP for Tonota North, Mr Fidelis Molao had asked the minister whether there is a provision in the law to allow for a waiver to pay P1 000 replacement fee for losing a passport especially through burglary/theft and if so how is it applied and how many times has it been applied, if not does the minister consider the payment of this fee fair to Botswana when the loss of a passport was not through negligence.

The minister should state whether he would consider relaxing the law when circumstances such as the above have occurred and there is a police report on the same. Ends