British Embassy Visa Section Unprofessionalism

Editor- This is a letter to expose the unprofessional process with which the Harare-British Embassy is handling prospective applications. It is no secret that it is difficult to successfully acquire a visa for the United Kingdom by the average Zimbabwean whether Black or White. The amount of documentation required for the application, including additional documentation to 'assist' a person's application is difficult to acquire. Oddly enough, for those who do submit the necessary documentation with the additional information to 'assist' the application, they are treated any different from those who have not supplied the needed information.

For example. The procedure to apply for a working Holiday-Maker Visa is to apply from your resident country and supply the necessary outlined documents. So if you are in the United Kingdom and intend on applying for that particular visa, you would have to return to Zimbabwe. If you had been in the United Kingdom for the past two years, you qualify to have answer in 24 hours. This is known as the 'Express Service'. In the case of someone who has not been to the UK in that period, they make their application and should have to wait for 15 working days for an answer.

The Express Service is bogus as the British Embassy surpasses the 24 hours period to give you an answer. Some applicants have been made to wait 2 months to over a year for their '24 hour answer'. The embassy send you a letter the day after the application stating that your application has been 'deferred'; so they can make enquiries concerning it.

"...Unless you are contacted for further documents or information directly by the Entry Clearance Officer or our courier agent please do not contact this office or our agent."

This is all well and good, but as the applicant you would be expecting enquiries to last a week at most. It would not take them a month to make a phone call to wherever or whoever concerning that application. Responses to enquiries are fruitless as the embassy courier would state that there is no answer as yet concerning the application. Being forced to contact the embassy itself, it would be stated that you had not have adhered to the above statement regarding contacting them. Since they would still be making their enquiries concerning your application, it should be boldly stated that the increased number of calls, either in the form of enquiries or complaints limits your chances of a successful reply as it will be viewed as 'Pushing them'.

It is understandable that the process has to be thorough, but the time period is unacceptable. How is one supposed to plan without an idea of the duration? There is no accountability in their administration process. Names are not given by the consultants leaving the applicant unable to use their names as a point of reference. I can only begin to outline inconveniences caused by this unprofessionalism. Plane tickets becoming void, job losses, missed funerals and graduations; and unfulfilled vacations. For the whole duration, your passport would be at the embassy together with your documentation. This must mean that the applicant does not intend to travel anywhere besides the United Kingdom. We can only begin to wonder what requesting your passport to travel elsewhere, could do to your application.

There are an ever-increasing number of withdrawals of application at FEDEX in connection with the Zimbabwe-British Embassy in Harare. We can attempt to brainstorm on plausible reasons that this might be. Frustration has to definitely be a reason. A psychological way of dealing with applicants and not wanting to deal with an appeal is making more sense by the month.

I challenge the British Embassy Visa Section to justify the enquiries that take more than a month to be looked into, and not sending any feedback to the applicant thereafter.

Seth Chilivhumbu
Published in the Zimbabwean Herald on the 31 July 2006.
I used an alias as I had a pending application with them.