Living Zimbabwe

Tag: Travel

  • The Harare Passport Office Experience

    To be frank, the Registrar-General’s Makombe building passport office experience was a ‘bitch’! Hoards of people, queues that at first didn’t make sense, civil servants full of attitude, soaring summer time temperatures, irritable applicants and the list goes on.

    When I first went over there to check what the price of a new passport was, it did not make much sense at all to me as to where to start off with the application process. There were queues and groups of people all over the place. One to pay for the application form and application fee, another to get this checked on the form after you have filled it out, another to get that checked on the form after you have gotten ‘this’ checked and another to submit the application after this and that has been checked. After that, depending on what type of application you put in, you return in 1, 3 or 14 days to collect you brand spanking new Zimbabwean Passport or ETD which you hope is not fake (we will get into that in another post).

    One thing that you should expect though is to not get you passport in the 1, 3 or 14 days. I have personally come across people who have put in applications for 24 hour passports at the start of one week and when they have gone back the next day to pick it up, they have been told to return the following week.

    It is not fun to be lining up outside at the height of summer to get your hands on an application form. You would think that it would be a bit more bearable once you get into the building but that is not the case. In the corridors you will find queues or people lining up to get into various rooms. There is no ventilation and it can be almost impossible to pass through various sections unless you literally push people out of your way in order to get through. All of that leads to tempers flaring with a few words being exchanged and on a couple of occasion fists being exchanged so you best be careful what you do and say.

    If you do not want to be driven completely insane, the best thing to do is to something that ever since way back when has always been done, get a hold of someone who works in the office and ask them to assist you. Their assistance will see you jump queues (maybe not all of them) and avoid the stress of pushing and shoving with people all day long to get the application through. For some it can be a very stressful experience and if you pay the office a visit, do not be surprised if you find someone in tears and not knowing what to do.

    It is extremely irritating for some to go through the hassles of trying to get a passport given that if you are a Citizen of Zimbabwe you have every right to have a passport and the process of getting one should not be as complicated and stressful as it is. Some put it down to not only beaurocracy but to the civil servants working in these and other government departments seeing themselves as being in a position of power where they can and may very well make life hell unless they are compensated accordingly. Who is to blame for this corruption and exploitation? Is the government, the civil servants or has society just taken up that frame of mind?

  • Landing at Harare International Airport

    For those of you who have not been to Zimbabwe for a while, here is footage of what you can expect to see when landing at Harare International Airport in mid November. The footage was taken from a South African Airways Boeing 737-800 flight from O.R. Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg.

  • Zimbabwe Citizen Visa Applications and New Zealand Immigration Profiling Group

    Another Declined New Zealand Visa Application For a ZimbabweanThe UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are popular destinations for Zimbabweans looking for greener pastures. With this migration brings the issue of family who have stayed behind in Zimbabwe wanting to have a holiday and visit their relatives in their new homes. Being Zimbabwean, applying for a visitors visa for any of the above mentioned countries might be a bit of an ordeal but if you have all your paperwork in order you would expect to get a positive response within a few days of applying. When it comes to applying for a visa, it is not the biggest or most popular destination that poses the most problems. New Zealand, which probably has the least to offer in terms of employment, earning and development potential is the one that gives the most headaches.

    Zimbabweans looking to enter New Zealand as a visitor or on a long term basis can expect to be in for a very long wait as their applications are being processed. Let’s say for example someone in Zimbabwe wants to visit a son, daughter, sister etc. They will have to submit an application through the New Zealand High Commission South Africa branch in Pretoria which will set them back ZAR800 plus the cost of couriering the passport, application and supporting documentation to South Africa. In some cases they may need to get the person they intend on visiting to send supporting documentation to submit with the application. Once in SA, they will be told that they don’t process Zimbabwean passport holders applications and that it will sent to NZ for processing which will take two to four weeks (this timeframe seems to vary). The weeks that they were told it would take end up turning into months and at the end of it all the applicant gets a letter that reads along the lines of ‘we regret to inform you that your application for a visitors visa has been declined……’

    The New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) set up a unit called Immigration Profile Group (IPG) which processes visa applications of citizens from countries it deems as high risk. If you are travelling on a passport from a country on IPG’s list and are applying for any sort of visa the application is sent to Wellington regardless of where in the world you are. Due to the situation in Zimbabwe, it happens to be close to the top of that list which makes it difficult to apply for a visa to travel to and enter NZ. With that being the case, family members of Zimbabwean resident in NZ have missed out on those very special and one off events in life that are just not the same without loved ones around. I have come across a number of Zimbabweans whose parents have applied for visitors visas and been declined after waiting for months and months for a response. A number of these declined applications have been for people who want to visit to attend their son or daughters wedding or the birth of a first grandchild. It is extremely heart-breaking for parents, sons and daughters when a visa application is declined even after explicitly stating the fact to NZIS that someone wanted to travel for those reasons.

    When IPG receives the application it is put into a ‘managed queue’ as it waits to be assigned to a case officer and how long that takes or what position it is in the queue, no-one knows. If you call NZIS to find out the status of the application and it hasn’t yet been declined, all that they tell you is whether or not it is in the queue, with a case officer or notes if any that have been placed on the file. You cannot make direct contact with IPG via telephone with only way of getting in touch with them being via fax or email. Even if you are to get in touch with IPG, the chances of getting a response from them are slim to none.

    Something else that becomes an annoyance for applicants is the length of time for which IPG holds passports for. Some people might need their passport to travel but when they get in touch with the overseas mission through which they submitted the application they are told that asking for their passport back means withdrawal of the application. But that is not the case, passports can be sent back to applicants as the application progresses in the queue. That shows that there is a break down in communication between IPG and NZIS overseas missions. One thing that is even more pathetic is that fact that if you call their call centre here you can have operators telling you that you can get your passport back as the application progresses and others telling you that if you ask for it back the application is effectively withdrawn. What information do you work on when some of the call centre representatives don’t seem to know how the process works and IPG cannot be contacted directly for the correct information?

    Even after satisfying all the requirement there is no guarantee that a visa will be granted. Working on information from personal experience and that of friends whose family members applications have been declined, IPG does not seem to follow their own guidelines and wants excessive amounts of information in order to approve an application. As an example; for evidence of funds you need to show proof that you have enough money to support yourself during your stay. Their minimums are NZ$1000/person/month or NZ$400/person/month if accommodation is paid for. If you are not able to provide this proof, the other acceptable form of evidence is a declaration by a New Zealand sponsor that they will pay for accommodation and maintenance. A few people who have been able to provide proof of funds in the form of very healthy bank statements (not in ZW$) have had their applications declined on the basis that a sponsorship form was did not accompany the application. On top of that they have been deemed as people who were not likely to return to Zimbabwe even if they are well travelled and have enough money to pay for their visit and then some.

    The common theme with declined applications is that they do not believe that the applicants will return to Zimbabwe once in New Zealand. Apparently New Zealand cannot send Zimbabweans back home once their permit has expired because of a United Nations Convention. Yes, there may be people who have ulterior motives but I believe that a large proportion of the applicants are genuine visitors. It just makes you wonder if it is worth it trying to go through the hassle of putting in an application, getting your passport back if you need it, following up on the application and having niggling thoughts for months of whether or not you will get the visa. For a lot of genuine applications it ends up being a very big waste of time and money.

    Members of the Zimbabwean Community in Wellington (ZIMDARE) meet with Parliamentarians and presented the issue to them. They received a letter stating that the Minister of Immigration and the head of IPG were looking into the issue. It will be interesting to see what the outcome is. In the mean time though NZIS and IPG really need to get their act together and be able to provide clients with useful information in a timely manner. The also need to be more upfront about the application process and not be make applicants and sponsors run around to provide them with all the information they ask for and turn around to decline an application for petty reasons.

  • The Passport That Takes You Nowhere

    In Zimbabwe’s early years travel was so easy for a number of her citizens. Getting together all the necessary items to take your family on holiday was not a difficult task. Applying for a getting a passport if you didn’t have one was simple. Getting money for travel, accommodation and spending was not a problem either. Best of all, passage into a number of countries worldwide was a breeze. You could travel to quite a few visa free and if you needed a visa the application process was simple and approval almost certainly guaranteed.Nowadays, it is a completely different story.
    Traveling on a Zimbabwe passport can be a little tricky. You need a visa to visit a number of countries. A few years ago Zimbabwe introduced machine readable passports but some of the Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have not yet gotten a chance to get themselves one. They are still traveling on the old style non-machine readable and handwritten passport. These old passports can lengthen processing times at border controls and. I have an old style passport and have even been stopped at the air bridge. This happened to me when boarding flights in Johannesburg, Dallas and Stockholm. The authenticity of my passport is what was being questioned. This was such an inconvenience and embarrassing as I was made to stand aside with an official standing next to me waiting to question me as my flights boarded.A few weeks ago I got to listen in on a conversation between a Zimbabwean and the former Immigration Minister (New Zealand). He mentioned how it was in his era that they started up a unit Immigration Profiling Group (IPG) that handles all visa applications from a list of countries that they deem as high risk. These countries are where there is political unrest of whom its citizens may decide to not return if allowed passage into New Zealand. He mentioned that Zimbabwe was at the top of the list of African countries. Visa applications normally take weeks but if you have the misfortune of being a citizen of a country whose applications have to go through IPG you are looking at a wait time of about 6 months. This is ridiculous when all you want to do is visit a country even after that six month wait period your application may be declined. If you are a 23 year old person who has not travelled at all and doesn’t have any real reason to return to your homeland you can forget about it. This is sure to be the same for a number of Western countries around the world who are imposing sanctions against Zimbabwe.

    Anything and everything is just becoming harder for Zimbabweans but, there are a number in the Diaspora who have been able to become residents of the countries they are living and working in which does give them a bit of peace of mind in knowing that they do not have to worry about what to do when their visas/permits expire.

  • Maybe Air Zimbabwe Can Do It

    Following on from the previous post, maybe Air Zimbabwe can do it. Strengthening ties with airlines in the region may help in rebuilding the airline. Take a look at the story below:

  • British Airways Flies Out – Will Air Zimbabwe Cope?

    On the 28th of October a British Airways Boeing 777 flew out of Harare on its way to London for the last time. BA cited high operational costs as the reason for the pull out. Fuel shortages in Zimbabwe had forced them to truck fuel in from neighbouring countries which was becoming uneconomical. A decline in passenger numbers was also resulting in losses on the Harare route.

    In the nineties, BA flew packed Boeing 747 jumbo jets to Harare four times a week. A number of other foreign airlines flew into the country and these included the likes of Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, TAP and Qantas just to name a few.

    When the political situation in Zimbabwe started to deteriorate a number of airlines withdrew their services. All that was left was a handful of African carriers and BA. Due to dwindling passenger numbers BA cut their services to three flights a week on 777s which carry half the capacity of 747s. With BA’s departure, Air Zimbabwe is left as the only airline with a direct route to Europe.

    To fill in the gaps, Air Zimbabwe has added two more flights to the Harare-London route. This brings their weekly flights between the two cities to five. Them being able to handle the increase in flights is another story. The state owned airline has been facing a few problems brought about lack of fuel, maintenance and mismanagement issues. There have been periods when flight delays have stretched for more than a few hours and ran into days. On occasion aircrafts have been diverted to cater to government officials leaving a number of passengers stranded. Only time will tell if they are able to provide a good service.

    There is a question that is still on peoples minds. Was BAs pullout really due to economics or was it politically motivated in an effort to further isolate Zimbabwe?