ONE STEP CLOSER TO BECOMING KENYAN –MY DEPENDANT PASS APPROVED AND STAMPED

After being in Kenya for the last 2.5 years, I have learnt a lot.  If there is one thing that is talked about the most on NES, it is that of visas.  In my short 2 years I have seen the immigration department change their process several times, amendments made, restructuring of the immigration department and closures of the actual department as well.  You could call the visa process a mine run and I think the most frustrating thing for all concerned is there are no clear guidelines on the process.  You can never know what works for one person will be the same for some-one else, even applying for the same visa.  Everyone has a different experience that makes it is hard to judge just how your own application and the time period that it will take.

I learned right from the start when I moved here that the visa process is a beast and something that shouldn’t be tackled on your own.  The word on the streets is that if you attempt to do it yourself, it could be a lengthy process taking months and months; it could end up costing you a lot more than what you would have paid an immigration advisor to do it on your behalf.  Oh yes nothing seems like it is an easy option for the beast of the visa here in Kenya.  Of course you can do it yourself, but I had/have only heard of setbacks and delays and for something so important I saw the value in obtaining an Immigration Advisor to help me wade through the process back in 2012.  My first 12 months I was in Kenya, I pretty much got by on a tourist visa, which allowed me to stay in the country for a 3 month period at a time.  This suited me fine as I was still travelling a lot during that time, so I would exit out of Kenya for a trip and just apply for a new tourist visa every time I returned.  At one point I checked with an immigration officer when I was returning after a trip to London whether there was a maximum amount of times one could enter the country on a tourist visa and I was told no.  I always felt nervous when I was coming ‘home’ to Kenya on a tourist visa, as I was always expecting a tap on the shoulder and a lot of questions, even though of course I had nothing to hide.  So legitimately, I could skip out of the country every 3 months to reset the tourist visa and I would technically not be in the wrong.  But, I had always had long term plans for living in Kenya and I knew that eventually I would have to apply for a permanent visa, which in turn apply for citizenship and my time on tourist visas would not count for the 7 years required to be in Kenya before I could apply for that big daddy.  It’s a long term goal for citizenship and becoming a dual national of both Kenya and Australia.  The great thing is that both countries allow dual citizenship so that I don’t have to decide whether to renounce my citizenship of Australia, which would be a crazy move if I was only allowed the choice of one, but one I would certainly think about.  So in the end, I applied for a K class permit, it is a retirement permit, so I was unable to work on it, but there was no pressure to leave the county every 3 months and I was now a legal resident until November 2015.  The total cost including fees and bond totaled 4700AUD.  Not a cheap exercise to say the least, but a worry I didn’t have to think about any time soon.

As things turn out in the middle of 2014, nearly 18 months on, I met my African Prince.  Like a true fairy tale, we fell in love and we got married in March 2015.  He is an amazing man, some-one who makes my life better and I am so glad to have this wonderful person in my life.  Because I had married a Kenyan, I am entitled to apply for a Dependant Pass.  After looking into it after Eric and I married it is like the magic pass of the Kenyan permits.  The application was not difficult, the cost was CHEAP and even though I still require a work permit to engage in employment, I was able to stay in Kenya for an undefined time, and opposed to the K class permit where I was not allowed to work, I would now legally be able to work and apply for a work permit should/when I find a job.  I am surprised that people don’t abuse this system, like the elusive green card for the USA, but I guess there aren’t a lot of people that desperate to live in a country like Kenya where they would think marry to stay here.  This time, as I now had a Kenyan on my team to bat, we did decide to lodge the Dependant pass on our own.  We did use the services of a ‘fixer’, who is a person who runs around and do all the leg work for you.  They sometimes have contacts in the area that you are requiring and will help streamline the process for you.  Not only in immigration, but for car registration, marriage matter and just about anything you can think of there are people who can help for a small fee, and I think 100% of the time is totally worth the outlay on most matters.  This cost was 5,000KSH (67AUD) for the fixer and the actual visa was 5,000KSH (versus another K class visa where I can’t work was 200,000KSH) it was again was worth every penny.  What was supposed to be a 2 week process ended up taking 6 weeks and was a little frustrating at times, but I finally got that boring, unassuming stamp in my passport on Thursday and I was able to do a small happy dance that I was one more step closer to becoming Kenyan.  I will be able to now apply for my Dependants Card, which will supersede my current alien card and there was now no time limit or restriction on my stay and now employment. 

Now I complain that my application took 6 weeks, but just in my own circle of friends there was one person who had submitted her dependant pass in October and was still waiting (8 months later it was approved) and one of the people I read about on NES had applied for theirs in the September (I wonder if they have theirs now).  There are 2 reasons why mine was done so quickly.  One: I married a Kenyan, so there was not a lot of paperwork required and this may have sped up my application.  Two: The other hot topic of an Expat in Kenya is the paying of ‘tea’ money.  We paid some ‘tea’ money (nothing HUGE) and I think this also helped the process.  It really is a HOT topic here, corruption in any line of government, people are VERY VERY adamant on what they think on the subject, and these possibly are also the people who are still waiting for their visas.  Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I do believe that one person will not change the system and it really is a sad fact of business here in Kenya.  I am not happy paying a little extra for someone doing their job, but if you don’t it can even hamper your application, getting lost or going to the bottom of the pile, and there is not a think that you can do about it.  So not only did we use a fixer, we paid some tea money and WALAH I had my pass in 6 weeks.  Eric was also in town each week chasing the application, so this may have also helped and being a Kenyan moving in a Kenyan world. 

I am now one step closer to becoming a citizen in this crazy, exciting and challenging country.  I love it here.  There are challenges all the time, it is a world that is crossed between culture and expats and I love the mix of both that I find in my world here.  Because I am married to a wonderful Kenyan man, I think I am entitled to apply for citizenship earlier than the regulated 7 years.  It IS the big daddy of all the visas and I have heard that it can take up to 12 months for approval and can even take longer.  But I am in no rush and eventually this will be the last hurdle I will have to overcome.

Some last words of advice in applying for a Kenyan permit/visa.  If you choose to process the permit application on your own, you would be at the mercy of the officials who are notorious for foul play with expats’ applications. Officials will tell you it will take about 2 months but from frequent updates on NES experiences.  This may have changed a little with all the upgrades in the department as they work to stamp this type of things from happening but as mention each person has a different experience.  There have been some expats who have tried to do it on their own, waited for a year and THEN approached an immigration officer for help.  If you didn’t want to pay the hefty fees (worth every cent) of an IA, then the next best thing would be a fixer.  You need to make sure you are going with some-one that has been referred, as there have been cases that people have been ripped off by people posing as fixers and they run off with your money.  I had a Kenyan also on my team, a fixer and if needed I would have used my IA, who I have been referring all over the place and I have also been asked to write referrals on their behalf for potential clients and I would whole heartedly use them and keep referring them.

I NOW HOLD A DEPENDANTS PASS.