NIS drops proposed passport revenue by 96%

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Grace Cofie

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has dropped its projected passport revenue from N27.18bn to 2021 to N1.03bn for 2022.

This was shown in an analysis of the proposed budgets of government-owned enterprises.

Proposed passport revenue for 2021 was N24.43bn and proposed revenue for e-pass was N2.75bn while N1.03bn was proposed as passport revenue and N201.81m was proposed as e-pass revenue.

This represented a 96.2 per cent decrease in the projected revenue.

While the projected passport revenue dropped, there was an increase in the expenditure budget from the N69.11bn approved in 2021 to N75.32bn in the proposed 2022 budget. This shows an increase of N6.21bn.

The NIS Public Relations Officer, James Okpo, said certain factors such as validity period of passports and the possibility of people going for more long- term passports.

He said, “Two things are important here. The enhanced passport project is a public-private partnership. So, it’s not essentially the way you are looking at it.

“Number two, the enhanced passport is coming in 10 years. So, if I get a 10-year valid passport, you shouldn’t expect me to come back anytime soon.

“So, we can take a bearing from that. Most people are coming for a longer duration passport. That is the essence of the enhancement. It has a longer duration.

“Moreover, it is just a proposal. It’s just a projection. I understand your concerns. That does not mean it will turn out this way at the end of the year. It’s not cast in iron.

“The Diaspora population would prefer a longer duration passport. So, we opened the enhanced passport facility in London last week. And we are opening more locations such as that in other missions abroad during the year.”

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