It’s a statutory administrative charge, NiDCOM, NIS sayNigerian passport candidates in the UK are miffed over the obligatory £20 (about N40,000) postal order cost that accompanies every software on the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) workplace in London.
Within the case of a misplaced passport, the obligatory postal order is £150 (about N300,000) per applicant – being an extra charge to a median of £242 presently paid for passport processing within the UK.
The Postal Order, in line with the Royal Mail of the UK, goes to ‘charity’, although the NIS registers it as an administrative charge.
Findings by The Guardian present that the £20 United Kingdom postal order for Nigerian candidates is often used as a type of fee to the Nigerian Excessive Fee within the UK when making use of for a Nigerian passport renewal or different consular companies.
The mode of fee is for every applicant to buy a postal order on the Royal Mail price £20 or £150 to the credit score of the Nigeria Excessive Fee London and get a pre-paid voucher that may be verified by the Fee. In the back of the voucher is the word that the fee goes to charity.
A Nigerian resident in London, Henry, lamented the “rip-off gimmicks” of the Nigerian authority towards their residents.
Henry not too long ago paid the appliance charge of £242 (roughly N500,000) for a 10-year passport renewal.
“We have been additionally made to buy a particular supply envelope from the Royal Mail workplace to ship our passport to our chosen addresses. No one is complaining concerning the envelope as a result of the NIS makes use of it to ship our passports.
“What I discover unimaginable is the postal order exploitation that supposedly goes to charity. When has giving to charity develop into obligatory, and each applicant should donate by pressure? I met a man who had misplaced his passport. The poor fellow needed to pay £150 earlier than he might be attended to. That’s wickedness. No one pays for that in Nigeria and I’ve not heard of that in another nation,” he lamented.
He appealed to the Minister of Inside to finish the standing order for Nigerians. “In any other case, in the future, Nigerians within the UK will likely be pressured to finish it by way of a well-organised protest which will make it unimaginable for NIS to function easily. I feel the minister could not need his good works to be rubbished by this exploitative £20 or £150 standing order,” he stated.
One other respondent, Olawale Animashaun, stated that the sum of £20 seems like a median sum, however cumulatively, a big quantity that the Nigerian Mission ought to accord a greater justification.
Animashaun stated there may be nothing UK-related within the Nigerian embassy’s visa processing and companies in London to warrant the excessive value of £242 and an extra £20 or £150 per applicant.
“The booklets used listed below are from Nigeria and even the workplace is Nigerian territory. So, why invoice Nigerians within the UK a lot?
“On common, the NIS doesn’t get lower than 100 purposes each day. If 10 of them misplaced their passports, that may be £1500, and for the remaining, £1800. That’s £3300 each day, £10,800 weekly, £37,800 month-to-month, and £433,800 yearly. We’re speaking about N867 million in a yr for administrative charges! It doesn’t add up in any respect. They should assessment that and in addition scale back our software charges.
“What has charity bought to do with administrative expenses? Whether it is, why not in different components of the world and Nigeria?
“My query is, why is NIS making postal order obligatory for candidates within the UK when such requirement shouldn’t be relevant in Nigeria? Notice that the British embassy doesn’t make candidates order a postal order earlier than being attended to by the British Embassy within the UK. Why the Nigerian embassy? The minister has to cease this,” Animashaun stated.
Efforts to get responses from the Ministry of Inside proved abortive as inquires despatched to the minister’s aides on the complaints weren’t answered as of the press time.
An official of the Nigerian Diaspora Fee (NiDCOM), nevertheless, affirmed that the £20 charge is an “administrative cost” and never for charity.
He denied that the charge goes into non-public pockets, however was accepted for all Nigerian Diplomatic Mission to allow the mission to offset a part of the operating value of the processing centres.
“Income era shouldn’t be the goal. The federal government desires the centres to perform successfully and to ship high quality companies to Nigerians which are already appreciating these efforts.”
As to why the “administrative cost” stands alone from the processing charges and payable to a 3rd get together, the official has no reply.
