UK Cancels £3,000 Visa Bond - Nigerians Free To Fly Again THE United Kingdom has stopped the planned imposition of £3,000 bond on visitors from six commonwealth countries, including Nigeria, it was learnt on Sunday. The scheme failed to kick off on Friday, November 1 as promised in June. According to a report on BBC news on Sunday, a Home Office spokesman confirmed a Sunday Times report that the policy would be scrapped, while Reuters quoted a government’s spokesman as saying that the levy had been cancelled. “We have decided not to proceed,” it quoted the unnamed spokesman as saying. “The government has been considering whether we pilot a bond scheme that would deter people from overstaying the visa. We have decided not to proceed,” another Home Office official was quoted to have said. Under the plan, visitors from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana seeking a six-month British visa would have been obliged to pay a refundable £3,000 cash bond to deter them from overstaying. A UK official who spoke on condition of anonymity with our correspondent on Friday had said that there had been no official communication from the home country on the visa bond, which almost generated a diplomatic row between UK and Nigeria on one hand and the affected countries on the other hand. He said, “We have not received any directive on the visa bond. This is an issue the two countries (Nigeria and UK) have approached through diplomacy. “The policy cannot be implemented now because there is no official communication on it.” A visit by our correspondent to VFS Global, the visa application and collection centre for UK, France, Belgium, and a few other European countries as well as South Africa revealed that the policy did not begin as earlier announced. Another official said, “Even at the time the information leaked, the policy was only muted; there was no conclusion on it. Up till now, there is no conclusion on the implementation”. Inquiry at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also showed that there had been no official communication between Nigeria and the UK. The ministry’s spokesman, Ogbole Amedu Ode, said he was not aware of any official decision from the UK to implement the policy after Nigeria had protested against it. He said, “I am not aware. We have a mission in UK if there is any development the information will come from there. To the best of my knowledge I am not aware.” Following media reports that the UK government was considering imposing a visa bond on first time visitors from Nigeria, the Federal Government on June 24 summoned the UK High Commissioner, Andrew Pocock. The country protested what it termed a highly discriminatory policy aimed at portraying Nigeria in bad light. Pocock at a meeting with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, on June 25 admitted that his government planned to introduce the “financial bond as a way of tackling abuse in the immigration system”. He, however, said “no final decision has been made”.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 19:20:32 +0000
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