via Britain introduces stringent visa conditions April 4, 2014 in NewsDay
ZIMBABWEANS intending to secure visas to the United Kingdom will now find it cumbersome following the announcement of a new application process by the British Embassy that would require applicants to pay application fees on line.
The British Embassy in Harare on Monday announced that visa applications would now be done online and payment made by debit cards.
Most Zimbabweans use hard cash and have no access to MasterCards, credit or debit cards.
“With this change, it is now mandatory that UK visa customers pay for their visa fee online by MasterCard or visa credit or debit card,” said the embassy in a statement on its website.
“The move to online application and payments will deliver a streamlined application process and is consistent with a wider global trend to online transactions and payments. This brings our application process in Zimbabwe in line with the rest of southern Africa, where online applications have been in place for some time.”
According to the statement, Zimbabweans will no longer have to queue at the embassy to apply for a visa as they would now be required to visit the www.Visa4UK.fco.gov.uk website, to apply online and for an appointment time.
However, the embassy also introduced a priority visa that would be processed within five working days, unlike the 15 working days required to process a normal visa, a move that will impact positively on Zimbabwean businessmen who intend to visit Britain.
“The Priority Visa Service will take five working days to process at a cost of £100 ($170) compared to the 15 working days processing of the normal visa. It is hoped that this will impact positively on our business customers.”
Previously, people had to wait for more than three weeks to get visas to go the UK, where most Zimbabweans live after fleeing the economic hardships back home a decade ago.
The new application system, according to the statement, would meet the requirements of the UK government’s Digital by Default initiative, help cut costs in the management of the visa operation, and help in keeping the fees down.
COMMENTS
A welcome move as now people from outside Harare do not have to make the long journey.
Thank you Britain
Keep that little island of yours! THIS FORMER COLONY WILL NEVER BE A COUNTRY AGAIN!
shut up you buffoon! and crawl back under your rock we ma british are not interested in your ruined former colony that we gave back to you over 33 years ago. if we wanted to keep it we could easily have done so but we gave it back…. where were you? were you still planting landmines in maize fields and forcing poor innocent villagers to feed you for free because you carried a gun .(ps love what youve done with the place since 1980. you must be so proud you uneducated simpleton !
Not particularly au fait with satire are you Mr Bam Bam……
errr! no sorry its all guns blazing with me like it says on the tin bam! bam! seems i may have jumped the gun this time though if you pardon the pun.
Slight correction – factually most Zimbabweans live in Zimbabwe not UK as stated. Only the Zimbabwean con artists living on benefits in UK are there.
You are talking about your many ZANU comrades who live in the UK after have made a mess here I presume
@ apolitical Shut up idiot just admit you are a failure
@Chidumbu, Apolitical is right. It is not a fact that most Zimbabweans live in the UK.
It is a great lie from this reporter. In Zimbabwe there are more than 12.9 million people living here and to to say most Zimbabweans live in the UK implies that 12.9 mln plus people.
I think he meant that most of the diaspora lives in the UK.
Mr Apolitical not all in the UK are on benefits. Most Zimbabweans are hard working people who find it very difficult to rely on benefits
Apolitical is a clown. Zimbabweans in the UK have always had that facility. And JT you are right they were caught out recently trying to use South African based companies. Most likely APO was one. That’s why he is so bitter. He was caught out.Very low IQ if I might say so.
Correct TITLE: UK Embassy introduces Online Visa Applications.
Correct THEME: Application process now more convenient as everything is done online without needing to visit the embassy. This is what other nations the world over have been doing for many years while Zimbabweans wasted a lot of their time traveling to the Harare embassy to process visas.
UPPERCUT: Most countries allow citizens to apply for passport online. We hope ZW introduces the same as soon as possible.
SIDE KICK: We hope RSA, our neighbour, introduces online visa applications soon
Apocalyptical, I bet your world is coming to an end soon. Those hard working Zimbabweans in the diaspora (with the exception of your embarrassing drunkard friends) are coming home to live and build sooner than latter. Your sour attitude and dejection shows how miserable u really are.
I don’t see anything stringent here? The title is too misleading. Go to CABS and ask what it takes to have a prepaid mastercard. This is actually a convenience.
If its done elsewhere why cry life goes on.,or do you want to call it sanctions.
No one wants Zimbabweans, especially the gukurahundi types. Everyone around the world hates you!!!!
… and what are the visa requirements in China?
I think that you’d find that our ‘perennial friends’ want China to be part of Africa – but don’t want Africa to be a part of China.
What a spineless lot the shona speaking scum are…they vote in this Mugabe savage in 1980 and then a few years later the majority gap it to live and work in countries where white folk reign supreme…South Africa included. What is it about these individuals that whatever they touch in life they destroy. We’ve also noticed a drastic drop in house prices in the UK where these savages move into an area en masse…plus the streets become unsafe, thieving is the norm and the filth on our streets in the form of human dung is an everyday occurrence. I assume this is how these shona savages live in Zimbabwe? I also want to know why they have not transgressed past a mud hut or for that matter from eating roots and berries when white folk in Europe were living in Castles 500 years ago? I’m intrigued as to why there has been no advancement with these things? It makes me even more prouder to be white when I see how they have destroyed a country and it’s economy. Remember when all those uneducated government ministers/ crooks rushed off to some town to see pure diesel coming out of a rock, when you could clearly see the hose pipe protruding from the crack…what a useless bunch these individuals are…
No one need British visa, what is the use of British visa whether they introduce stringent visa or not, Africans are enough, they don’t need ice and snow!!
Ummmm, i think vakuru munonyeba. Most Zimbos want to be here in th U.K. Whenevr i go bek to Zim ppl wl b askng me th procedure ‘n’ th requiremts etc.
Keep ur brrrrteeeen we keep our Zvimba
its sad for us , we are now living in south Africa , hope one day the winds of change will finally come home so that all Zimbabweans will taste and have a better life