South Africans to pay more for passports

South Africans must brace themselves for substantial tariff hikes on passports and the reissuing of identity documents by their Department of Home Affairs.
This was disclosed at a media briefing by the South African Home Affairs director general, Mkuseli Apleni.
While the issuing of an ID document is free, the reissuing cost has rocketed from R20 to R140.
The same also applies for temporary identity certificates.
Apleni said these annual tariff hikes, which would take effect from April 1, were already gazetted after being approved by the Treasury.
Passports, which Apleni said were now costly to produce because of new security features, would cost R400, almost double the current fee. This compares to Zimbabwe's $50 for a passport. Lucky for South Africans their passports come out on time.
Temporary passports had also doubled in cost from R90 to R180.
"The state needs to recover the costs; there is nothing new to this, it happens annually. People know," said Apleni, who referred to the costs as reasonable.
He denied that it had anything to do with whether the department was running at a loss.