The Nuisance of Applying For a UK Visa admin Henry Mugisha Bazira As of April 2014, the UK Home Office introduced new measures for applying for a UK – Visa, which are entirely internet-based. The following is the trouble or harassment that you must go through in order to obtain a UK visa and there is no guarantee that it shall be issued, since there is a UK policy to restrict immigrants into the UK. If you have travelled to the UK, Europe or the USA before and not violated your visa terms, chances of obtaining a UK visa are higher than when you have not. Apart from the stage of submitting your visas application form and collecting of your passport via Teleperformance – a private company contracted to mediate the visa application process, the rest of the process is internet-based (i.e. online). For a country, whose internet is slow, expensive and not widely used, application for a UK visa becomes a nightmare and very costly for many people. The process assumes that every applicant has access to and can use a computer and printer, which is not the case. When filling the Visa application form and you do not save each page before proceeding to the next page, you run a risk of losing the information you had earlier entered. In addition, if the page stays inactive for sometime without activity on your computer screen, it shuts down, causing you to resume the process of filling the visa form all over again. Under Ugandan/normal circumstances, the visas application form could take about one hour to fill until the stage/page of signing the application form and then submitting it. The signing page does not open completely and scrollable on many computer screens and web browsers, making it difficult to sign the page and then submitting the application. You must have knowledge on how to reduce the screen size on your web browser in order to access the instruction buttons below after entering your name for signature. It is a challenge, especially for users that have Google chrome as their web-browsers. The system has a provision for inquiry, in the event that one is perplexed. However, reply to an inquiry is expected a day after. This continues to delay the submission of the application and could eat into the time one has to apply for the visa, have the visa approved and then travel. If you are successful in signing the application and submitting it into the system, the next obstacle is payment of the application fees (US$142) and setting an appointment with the Teleperformance office to submit a printed-out visa application form and your passport. First of all, the application fees are not a small amount in Ugandan terms. Secondly, the system requires one to pay using a visa debit/credit card, which is not a common service in Uganda. It takes one at least a week to obtain a visa-credit/debit card from the Banks that provide the service by opening a bank account. If you are to rely on this approach, it would be a long time (one week) waiting to pay for your visa application online. The quickest solution in such a case would be to use a trusted-friend’s visa-card to pay for the application by depositing the money on your friends account and conducting the transaction there. Even after effecting payment of the visa fees, it takes at least 24 to 48 hours for the payment to be reflected into the system in order to now book an appointment for submission for application form and passport with Teleperformance Office. It takes 5 to 15 days for a visa to be processed. Therefore, more time lost. If the time between ones travel and receipt of a visa is short, chances of obtaining the visa in time to travel becomes very slim. This suggests that if one is to prepare for a UK travel, visa application should begin a month towards the travel time. What is also annoying and causing all the delays is that UK visa processing occurs outside the country of origin of the application, except for those resident in the country where the applications are processed. It may be understandable that: The visa application procedures are changing internationally. However, countries must understand that they are not at the same stage of development. The UK decided to outsource the services of mediating agency between clients and the UK visa and immigration office. However, this is delaying the process and making it a very expensive venture. The UK desires to restrict immigrants However, it is annoying and degrading for the UK to: Imagine that every visa applicant is enthusiastic to live and work in the UK. Such imagination is tantamount to a colonial hang-over. Having a visa processing centre outside the country of origin of applications, thus delaying the process. Other Embassies in the country process visas in-country, making the process first and user friendly. What is so special about the UK? Take somebody’s money in the guise of processing fees, deny him/her a visa and not make a refund or at least part of it. Eligibility for a visa should be determined upfront before taking somebody’s money by Teleperformance. Otherwise, what is their role? Are they courier agents only? It seems to be a money making venture for the UK and not a service. For example, if US$70 is actual expenditure for processing each visa, this would mean a difference of US$72 in profit. If the home office received 1.0million applicants each year, it would have made a cool US$72million from visa applications. This is very tempting money for an economy that is not necessarily doing so well. No wonder, the Home Office and associated personnel are impersonal and non-caring. If it was indeed a service, the visa office would expedite applications that have proof of urgency and not ask for additional fees for urgency. Take ones passport and when the passport has been processed (approved or denied) fail to make a telephone call to the holder to pick the passport once it arrives at the Teleperformance country office, since telephone contacts are always given. It is a very small cost compared to the application fees. If the intention is indeed to restrict immigration into the UK, then the Home Office has succeeded in this by denying the non-privileged of society, especially from developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. If indeed the UK does not want such individuals to visit, they should make it categorically clear that such individuals are not welcome to the UK. The UK should also refrain from taking their money in form of visa application fees. Recommendations An alternative method of payment is provided for countries where visa-credit/debit cards are not commonly used. The USA State Department provided an alternative mechanism to pay at selected bank tellers in the absence of a visa cards. Appraisal for visa eligibility is done upfront before taking somebody’s money. UK Visa processing and approval to done in-country to avoid bulk applications and delays. Synchronize the signing page with the other pages of the application online. Reduce the application fees, if indeed it is a service. If nothing is done to rectify this problem, Uganda government should also impose stringent immigration measures to individuals from the UK, because Uganda reserves the right. Authored by Mr. Henry Mugisha Bazira, Executive Director, Water Governance Institute (WGI) and founding chairperson of the Civil Society Coalition on Oil and Gas (CSCO) in Uganda; a member of the Energy and Extractives Working Group (ESWG) of the Uganda Contracts Monitoring Coalition (UCMC); and one who has experienced the nuisance of the UK visa application.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 18:20:54 +0000
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