Visa queues in Nuku'alofa [1]
Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 15:23. Updated on Sunday, May 11, 2014 - 10:58.
Waiting for visas to New Zealand, the queue of people outside the New Zealand Immigration Service Offices, in Nuku'alofa, starts building up early in the morning during the countdown days to Christmas.
The NZIS advised Tongans wishing to visit New Zealand during the peak holiday period that they should lodge applications well in advance.
Jan Jeffery, the Service Manager, NZIS Nuku'alofa, said that the queues are the result of a last minute rush by applicants who leave it until the last minute to apply for a visa to travel to New Zealand before Christmas.
"We warned folk late in October but the rush began in the last week of November," she said, noting there were more people applying for visitor visas this year compared to last year.
"Maybe up to a couple of hundred more than last year. At the end of November we had 849 temporary applications on hand - of those 415 had been accepted in that last week."
Jan said that in a normal week she would expect about 200 applications to be decided. The office had four full-time visa officers working at this time of year on temporary applications and also an adminstration person to help.
"Because Tonga is a high-risk market (meaning a lot of Tongans overstay their permits) we are required to check a lot of information before we issue a visa. We have to build up a picture of that person and the type of family they come from. If the client is well-travelled (i.e. well-known to us and reliable) then the processing will only take about 10 minutes. Others take up to one hour - since many Tongans come from large families.
"Local people have the expectation their visas will be issued within a couple of days. This is quite unrealistic and is only achieved most of the year because the staff work so hard. The normal time that travellers should allow for a straightforward application for a Visitors Visa is two weeks.
Jan said that because the staff were prepared to work 12 hour plus days they would have this cleared up by next week. "In the meantime many people have had to reschedule their flights two or more times. The public should realise that it is unreasonable to expect the normal level of service at this time of the year.
"Applications could be made as early as October - so long as the applicant notifies the NZIS at the time of lodgement that they want to travel in December - the visa will be issued accordingly"
Emergencies were different, and the NZIS advised that an officer will be available for genuine emergencies (life or death situations), and not last minute late applications.