UK demands cash bonds for visas from 6 countries
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Britain will demand a 3,000-pound (US$4,630) refundable bond for visas for “high-risk” visitors from six countries in Africa and Asia, a pilot scheme that has brought warnings at home and abroad that it will damage trade.
Britain said in a statement yesterday that it will go ahead with the pilot scheme despite the outrage, charges of discrimination and warnings of retaliation.
The Home Office statement did not say when the pilot program would start. But it said it could apply the scheme in the future for all visas and any country.
“The pilot will apply to visitor visas, but if the scheme is successful we’d like to be able to apply it on an intelligence-led basis on any visa route and any country,” it said.
For now, the targeted countries are Nigeria, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Government data shows citizens of those countries applied for more than half a million visas to Britain last year.
Khaled Mahmud, owner of a Bangladeshi travel agency in Dhaka that deals with British student visas, charged the scheme was racist. “It smacks of a deep-rooted racial attitude,” he said.
In the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, computer businessman Syed Shahid Ali said the “painful and unbearable” new policy would have a negative impact on British tourism and business.
“How can someone who wants to visit the UK for a couple of days for business meetings or something else afford to set aside 3,000 pounds” said Ali, who travels there frequently. “He will simply go and do business elsewhere in Europe instead of getting into this problem of giving a bond and getting reimbursed.”
Haider Abbas Rizvi, a former Pakistani lawmaker, said the British government should review its decision because it would hurt a lot of Pakistanis who have family members living in Britain and who cannot afford the bond.
“There are just a few people who deviate from the system or break the law, so instead of bringing common travelers and law-abiding people under the possible financial burden, there should be strict surveillance on the violators of law in the UK or elsewhere,” Rizvi said.
Nigeria’s government made a formal demand last month that Britain renounce the proposal. Foreign Affairs Minister Olugbenga Ashiru called in the British high commissioner to express “the strong displeasure of the government and people of Nigeria” over the “discriminatory” policy.
Ashiru warned the move would “definitely negate” the two country’s commitment to double trade by 2014. Trade between the two countries increased nearly five-fold from US$2.35 billion in 2010 to US$11.57 billion last year, with Nigerian imports of British goods doubling in that time.
The Home Office said it hopes the bond system deters overstaying of visas and recovers costs of foreign nationals using public services.
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