Saturday, May 29, 2010

A random thought on passport fees

I wonder, if the fee for a passport with 2-year validity is RM100, then why does the immigration department is charging RM300 for a passport with 5-year validity? If it were up to me, I'd charge RM200. This will create an incentive for people to select the 5-year option. Then, people would renew their passports every 5 years rather than every 2 years. Of course, this applies to people who travels abroad all the time. People who don't travel abroad so often would probably still choose the 2-year validity option. Still, let's say the two groups are evenly split. By applying for the 5-year validity option, half the group would apply 67% less number of times, hence half of that is 33%. This roughly means that the passport-processing division can reduce their resources by 33%. Could this cost-saving be more than the additional revenue of charging more (for the 5-year validity passport)? The equivalent reduction in revenue is only about 16% (50% of 300-200/300). Of course there's still be people who wouldn't mind paying extra to avoid going to renew their passport more often. But could there be other reasons, perhaps the immigration department prefers if people have shorter validity passport than longer? National security, or whatever? Not that I can think of any.

6 comments:

knv

setau akak, goverment memang taknak galakkan rakyat malaysia ke luar negara. the reason behind it, i'm not sure. tak nak duit mengalir keluar maybe? pasal itu mahal nak buat pasport in longer term.

macam spore, it's so cheap. rasanya boleh terus apply for 10 years kot.

well, would love to hear others opinion as well.

Zidni

I don't think they go through the thought process at all, like what you just did.

If they did think of it, then maybe it's just another method to stem the brain-drain issue in Malaysia.

My humble opinion.

SMM

knv, zidni,

tak nak duit mengalir keluar (travels/holidays) seems to be (one of) a probable cause. kalau nak discourage ppl from kerja kat luar or migrate, mcm tak effective je, sbb to these people apa lah sgt the rm100 or half-day queue.

it's scary to think that there's no analysis or thought process in coming up with decisions.

it's also scary if there's an unwritten policy that discourages government agencies to think of ways to increase efficiencies because they want to keep everyone's jobs or even 'better', hire more people..

H

I doubt the economics is that simple. What does it mean by "reduce the resources by 33%"? Reduce the number of the staff, the machines, or something else?

aida

kena fikir berapa ramai just buat pasport nak gi melancong kan? say nak gi bandung jer, and you will not use your passport often. mungkin sekali je gi bandung.

and travelling is expensive. ii opt for years next time kot! hehehe

aida

ops 2 years

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