Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security Dr. Jean Kalirani has disclosed that government is working on plans to have the passport fee hiked as one of the measures to curb the economic challenges the Immigration Department is facing.

Kalirani disclosed this on Monday when she toured the Immigration Headquarters in the commercial capital Blantyre.

According to Kalirani, the Immigration department is failing to meet some of the its duties such as issuing passports in time due to high cost of printing materials and the depreciation of the kwacha against major foreign currencies.

She said once the discussions are over, the general public will be informed of the new charges.

Recently the social media was a washed with reports that passport fee has been hiked by close to 40 percent but the immigration department trashed the news.

According to published reports, the fee for an ordinary passport was adjusted to K80,000 from the previous K48,500 , express passport was pegged at K110,000 from K58,500 while an emergency passport which takes two days to be process was claimed to be at K150,000 from K85,500.

Meanwhile Malawians has expressed shock over the development.