PEOPLE

Kenyans will have to pay more to access key documents such as birth and death certificates. This comes after the government, through the State Department of Immigration and Citizen Services, gazetted the new fees that include an upward revision of the registration of birth and death certificate from Ksh50 to Ksh200. Moreover, late registration for birth and death certificates will attract a service fee of Ksh500, up from the previous Ksh150. An additional Ksh 910 will also be charged for the loss of a birth certificate after the fee was increased to Ksh1,000 from the previous Ksh90. If you wish to amend the same documents in case of errors such as missing letters or typos, you will be charged a total of Ksh1,000 up from the previous rate of Ksh130. Kenyans living in the diaspora will be required to pay Ksh 19,000 which is (USD15O) at the current exchange rates for the same service. Additionally, those in the diaspora will pay Ksh1,000 for registration of a birth or death that will occur outside Kenyan borders. Authenticating the seal of the principal registrar will now cost you Ksh500, with the same service costing Ksh 12,950(USD100) when provided to a foreign mission in Kenya. Fees for an ordinary 34-page passport will now cost Ksh 7500 from Ksh 4,500. The fee for a diplomatic 50-page document was also revised from Ksh 7,500 to Ksh 15,000 while the fee for an ordinary 50-page document went up from Ksh 7,500 to Ksh 9,500. The cost of replacing a lost passport was increased from Ksh 12,000 to Ksh20,000 while the cost of replacing a mutilated passport was increased from Ksh10,000 to Ksh20,000. The government also increased the fees for single journey visas by doubling the figures. The government has officially embarked on its previous decision to increase fees for a raft of services after reversing the same at the beginning of this year to give room for public participation.