By Seliphar Machoni
Kenya’s cry to the Kenya Kwanza government continues as more taxes and levies are imposed on important documents.
Kenyans will have to dig more deeper into their pockets for crucial and important documents such as identification cards, passports, birth certificates, death certificates and even marriage certificates.
November 7 a gazetted notice granted the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and National Administration Prof. Kiture Kindiki, the authority to revise charges and levies on service within the state Department for Immigration and Citizen service.
CS Kindiki has thus declared that obtaining a national ID will no longer be provided free of charge. Those not previously registered will have to part with Sh1,000.
Registered Kenyans in need of ID replacements will hence have to pay 20 times more than the previous cost, with the new fee set at Sh2,000, up from Sh100.
Fees for ordinary passport booklets with 34 pages have increased by Sh3,000, now priced at Sh7,500. For 50-page booklets, the cost has risen to Sh9,500 from Sh6,000, and 66-page booklets will be Sh12,500 instead of Sh7,500.
The Diplomatic passport with 50 pages has doubled from Sh7,500 to Sh15,000.
Kenyans seeking to replace a lost or mutilated passport will now incur a fee of Sh20,000, up from Sh12,000 for a lost passport and Sh10,000(mutilated).
The revised charges also extend to birth and death certificates; the cost of a birth certificate has increased to Sh200 from Sh50, and the fee for a death certificate is now Sh200, up from Sh50.
Late registration of birth will now incur a fee of Sh500, up from Sh150, and late registration of a death certificate will cost Sh500, also increased from Sh150.
Additionally, the re-registration of birth will now cost Sh1,000, up from the previous fee of Sh90.
Amendments to both birth and death certificates will now cost Sh1,000, an increase from the previous fee of Sh130.
Further still, Kenyan citizens will now pay Sh1,500 for a presumed death certificate, up from the previous fee of Sh150.
The cost of marriage certificates has also surged from Sh30,000 to sh100,000.
Kenyans applying for visas, citizenships, and work permits will also feel the pain.
This comes a few days after the rise after the announcement of the fiel prices that is set to rise to Ksh 300.
Kenyans have expressed their concerns saying that they feel overburdened by the taxes and levies imposed on commodities and documents by the Kenya Kwanza Government.
Citizens took it to social media to express their distress and disappointments with most of them saying that in Kenya citizens are just surviving.
Others even went further to call upon the opposition leader Raila Odinga to speak about it and even call for demonstrations.
Another one said, “where the president expect a form four graduate to get Kshs 1000 to pay for the identification card.”
Others said, “Some citizens can’t even afford basic meals everyday leave alone having kshs 1000 for the IDs.”
Others went on to joke about the situation saying that. “So the Kenya Kwanza government wants us not to marry or get married, adding levies to marriage certificates was not necessary at all.”
Another said, “I think I should take my death certificates now because I am sure when I will die it will be Kshs 1M.”
