MY KENYAN PERMIT IS ON THE MOVE

You can’t imagine how much talk goes on between expats here in Nairobi about visas.  You hear all sorts of stories, experiences and especially read all sorts of comments on the NES Facebook page.  Back in July I was geared to take the leap and get a visa that was not a tourist visa.  I started asking people about their experiences and if they could recommend someone to help with the process.  You can lodge and process the work permit yourself, but I have only heard about setbacks, delays and ‘extra’ payments when people try this on their own accord.  I spoke to a lady last week who has waited 8 months (and still waiting) because the company she works for refuses to pay any bribes, and all of a sudden her file goes to the bottom of the pile.  Another lady, has 2 businesses here and her visa is currently up for renewal and told me to be prepared to pay said bribes, from what I can tell cannot really be avoided, and last time she paid 150,000KSH in bribes, which is insane as it is just over 1800AUD, and the cost of the visa for one year is 1200AUD-there is no way that I can afford to even remotely pay that type of bribe, but these are just the types of stories that do the rounds and it seems like it really depends on who you get at immigration, who you get as your legal aid and throw in a little bit of luck.  Most people that come to Kenya are transferring with a company or organization, so they are ‘sponsored’ as such and the company pays and does all the processing for the correct visa.  Not many people are in my boat, where I am a semi-retired and don’t have the backing of a company, so my situation is different from everyone else’s to start with.  

You just never know what is going to happen-ever.  Not in life, not in romance-nothing.  But I could guarantee that the Kenya visa process would not be plain sailing, no matter what anyone said and so far we had 2 strikes within the 4 weeks of my submission.  The first strike was not a major one.  Rebecca went to officially lodge my application back in July but wasn’t able to due to the printer machine at Immigration that issues the receipts was broken and they weren’t able to leave the application without receiving a receipt which is no surprise.  Everything is receipt based here, even buying food from a fast food restaurant-there are signs saying that you must get a receipt when you make payment-so for something as important as a visa application, it doesn’t surprise me that they will not take it if a receipt can’t be given.  I am guessing that it is in part of the crack-down on bribery and corruption.  There were no issues when it was lodged the following day, the first week in July, where my application was checked, which all was in order, which was great news that they didn’t need any further paperwork and finally my application was in the system.  Well, I was not really surprised, well I was a little, as deep down inside I was hoping that there wouldn’t be any other hold ups, when Rebecca emailed me 4 days later to let me know that the processing of all applications at immigration would be delayed due to restructuring of staff by the newly appointed Immigration Director.  As people may or may not be aware, Kenya’s elections took place earlier this year and with every new election come new staff for all government offices. The new director for immigration was finally recruited last week. They had just received information that the new director is now restructuring all the staff, not only in Nairobi but throughout the country. Therefore, processing of most immigration matters, including work permits, has been put on hold until further notice.  Unbelievably, this is a normal process in Kenya after every election and all we can do is now wait until the restructuring process is completed. We do not know how long this process will take, neither do any of the staff and are unable to tell us, as they are not sure either; however, as soon as Rebecca receives information, they will inform me immediately. They estimate the process should be completed by end of this week (fingers crossed).  So a week’s hold up at the minimum and goodness knows how long as a maximum.  My positive spin is that they can’t keep the Kenyan Immigration Office closed for too long-right?  Well this is Kenya (TIK) but it is a BIG revenue business for them and at the end of the day as long as I know either way before the 6^th of September, as this is when I depart on my West Africa trip, then I guess it really makes no difference.  Um-it can’t take that long can it?  Can it?  Well I do know it has taken longer for people, but I have my IA (Immigration Agents) on hand and in the know and it is reassuring to know that they are going through the process with me and are on top of everything.  This is why I am paying the money to have Rebecca on my team and I couldn’t be happier with all the progress reports and the stress free-ness of what is the beast of the Kenyan visa.  

  

As the weeks passed it transpired further that the Immigration department was now basically on full shut down, not just for work permits but visa renewal as well.  The newly appointed Immigration Director claims that she is restructuring staff and making improvements at Immigration which is not a bad thing and for the past 2 months, the Work Permit and Citizenship Departments have been on shutdown, the issue is that now just this week, Special Passes, Multi-Journey Visas and renewal of Tourist/Business Visas are not being processed.  This is going to be a problem for hundreds of people as their visas come up for renewal in the coming weeks.  I am one of them.  My tourist visa is due to expire on the 21^st August and if the Immigration department does not come back online, what are people supposed to do as we literally will be in Kenya illegally.  As good as it may be that potential "improvements" are taking place, such a crucial institution should not have to be on shutdown for this long as there are a bunch of expats in dire need to renew their nearly expired visas, obtain work permits/special passes in order to begin work and so forth. Companies/organizations are also suffering as a result of expat staff not being able to begin work, there are always implications for something as important as trying to clean up the bribes and corruption that seems to be going on.  Well the department opened up 2 weeks before my visa was due to expire, so I was able to stay in the ‘county’ legally and kept all my fingers and toes crossed that my permit would be processed before my West Africa trip. 

Well the permit department opened a week before I was due to leave in early September, 8 weeks after my initial application.  So my IA and I decided it would be a tight time line to get all the required paperwork filed, bank security and my passport back within 5 days and decided to put a hold on y application until I returned in January 2014.  This was a little disappointing to start with, but then the upside was that I would not be ‘wasting’ 4 months of a 24 month visa by not even being in the country with my end of year travel plans.  So I left Nairobi on the 6^th of September with my application pending and I would re-enter on a tourist visa in November for the 5 days I was back, re-enter again at the end of December on what would hopefully be the last tourist visa I would need to obtain.  Well you can imagine my surprise after 3 weeks with no internet access while in Sierra Leone, I logged onto my email and there was a message from my IA letting me know that they had a surprise for me.  They had been informed a few days that my permit had been approved on the 5^th of October!!!  This was GREAT news, but at face value also a little awkward as they initially needed all the information, payment and passport by the 5^th November and I was going to be in the boon docks of The Gambia with no internet, let alone trying to get the 300,000KSH that I would need to transfer for the fee and the security bond.  That was the million dollar catch, all payments needed to be submitted before the 5^th of November. If the date passes, my permit would automatically be rejected and re-applying on a rejected case is not an easy venture. Therefore we had to process everything before the 5^th!!  Imagine.  What initially was good news was fast becoming a big headache.  The processing agent at immigration had placed my application on hold as agreed; however, all immigration staff was restructured again at the beginning of October by the new immigration director, and were sent off to other ministries. New officers from other ministries have now replaced the staff at immigration.  So our officer decided to approve my permit before her leave date because she knew that the new officers would most likely reject my and other individuals’ permits. She explained that this is actually what happened after immigration resumed (around the time I left in September) and the new staff had taken over; a whole bunch of permits were wrongly rejected due to officers “trying to prove their worth” to the new immigration director. The officer also informed us that December and January are the worst months to have a permit processed due to holidays (it takes time for the government to “wake up” from holiday mode).  So the approval had caught us off guard and the next few emails from my IA officer improved with information and we were given a reprieve for the payment and processing to the 25^th November.  I was back the 17^th, so this was Fantastic news and within a span of a few hours I’d gone from ecstatic, to stress ball back to ecstatic again.  My visa had been APPROVED!!!!!!  It really was great news and I had a smile from ear to ear.  The news had come much earlier than we would have liked but it will actually work in my favor as it would probably have taken well past January for the new staff to get into the flow of things at immigration and I also will get more ‘validity’ from the visa. Missing only 4 weeks of the 24 months, getting the visa in November instead of what would have been in September.  I feel like I need to get some value for money with the visa costing nearly 1300AUD a year, which translates into a 106AUD a month, it doesn’t feel so bad that I am only losing one month and not the initial 4 months and over 400AUD of things had of gone to Plan A.  It’s the way I justify a lot of things in life and I find it works for me!!!!  So when I get back to Nairobi on Monday the 17^th November, I will have to hit the ground running, as I will have 5 working days to get everything done, and knowing Nairobi as well as I do now, with things running on African time, I just hope that the visa god’s will be on my side and that I can get it all processed in time before my departure to Australia.

BUT I HAVE BEEN APPROVED AND IT IS A GREAT FEELING!!!!!!