South Sudanese Passport booklets handed over to the Immigration and Passport Department in 2022. | File photo

Activists have condemned the government’s new levy on hard currency fees for passports and nationality certificates, arguing that it exacerbates economic hardship and raises concerns about national sovereignty.

“Using foreign currency for national documentation can create several challenges, especially for citizens who need access to documents like passports, ID cards, visas, etc. This violates the constitutional rights of those citizens to freedom of movement and residence,” said Godfrey.

“Asking the citizens to process documentation in foreign currency like U.S. dollars causes the citizens and the country to lose its sovereignty. A currency is one of the elements of the sovereignty of a country,” he stated.

“We call upon the parliament to make sure that the voices of these people, the voices of the citizens, are heard. The money is supposed to be reduced,”

In his part, Edmund Yakani raised concerns over the use of U.S. dollars in South Sudan’s national budget,

He added that similar issues arose during disputes over defining fees for the registration of political parties, underscoring the broader implications of relying on foreign currency in domestic affairs.

“We have our independent currency, the South Sudanese pound. We are disappointed to see the use of U.S. dollar units in our national budget. And budget represents the value of our sovereignty,” stated Yakani.

“Always our politicians like to say we are a sovereign state, we don’t want interference. Now our lawmakers have somehow expressed an exercise or an act of undermining SSP,” he said.

“Some officials of the Ministry of Finance and Planning have made that sense of not honouring and enforcing SSP as our national currency unit. The U.S. dollar figure is not static, it keeps on changing. And that has affected the value of SSP against the U.S. dollar,” he said.

“If that is a concept, and we have seen the experience when the political parties were disputing the use of U.S. dollars, in defining the fees for registration of political parties.”

In a statement released by an advocacy group, the Center for Peace and Advocacy (CPA), states that Parliament does not understand the suffering of South Sudanese citizens.

“If they truly grasped the living conditions many citizens face in the country, they would not attempt to increase passport fees, which burden many families. Life in South Sudan is vastly different from that in the rest of the world,” stated the statement.

“We are deeply concerned about the unwise decision made by Parliament that undermines the
aspirations of South Sudanese citizens across the country.”

In Uganda, the cost of an ordinary passport is 250,000 UGX, approximately $60. An express passport costs 250,000 UGX plus an additional 150,000 UGX processing fee, totaling around $100. A service passport costs 400,000 UGX, roughly $130, while a diplomatic passport costs 500,000 UGX, about $150.

In Kenya, the prices for ordinary passports vary: the “A” Series (32 pages) costs KShs 4,500
(around $40), the “B” Series (50 pages) costs KShs 6,000 (around $60), and the “C” Series (66
pages) costs KShs 7,500 (around $70).

The advocacy group called on the Government of South Sudan to consider the current economic crisis it described as caused by the current leaders who imposed these fees on ordinary citizens.

Early, the Minister of Interior Angelina Teny expressed concern over the 50% passport fee hike.

She told the parliament that her ministry suggested a 20% increase, and attributed the larger increase to recommendations from the South Sudan Revenue Authority.

This discussion follows a call in October by Lothar Jasckhe, Deputy Head of the EU Mission in South Sudan, urging the government to make nationality registration more accessible to reduce the risk of statelessness.