Foreigners arriving Nigeria from various countries have continued to lament over extortion practices by officials issuing (VOA) at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, (MMIA) Lagos.
The issuance of visa-on-arrival has been concessioned to private companies who collect the fees and eventually remit to the federal government.
The fees for the biometric visa-on-arrival is being collected by Online Integrated Services (OIS) and New Works, who are service providers appointed by the ministry of interior to collect the charges.
Samuel Getachew, an Ethiopian who arrived the country two days ago for the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Forum (TFT) forum took to his Twitter handle ‘GetachewSS’ to expose what he sees as a rip-off by the concessionaire companies involved in issuing the VOA.
According to Gatechew, “At Lagos Airport, I asked the visa officer why he was charging me, 105 dollars and not the 75 dollars as suggested. He said ‘shall I send you back home’ and he stashed the money in his pocket. When I asked for a receipt, he called out, ‘next’ looking for his next potential victim.”
Gatechew further disclosed that it was not just one official involved in the rip-off, but several others who had no name tags.
“The collection happened in the open and was witnessed by the staff of TEFforum,” he added.
This post has been trending on social media as many more people narrated their ordeals in the hands of the new concessionaires. As at the time this report was sent, 2,820 had re-twitted the post.
A source at the NIS who craved anonymity told BusinessDay that official rates for Visa on arrival is not a fixed amount and it varies from one country to another.
According to the source,”NIS issue visas based on the approval of the Controller general of NIS. Visa on arrival are concessioned to Online Integrated Services (OIS) and New Works, which are companies selected by the federal government.
However, another source very close to the immigration service also revealed to BusinessDay that immigration collects N100,000 from foreigners whose papers have expired in Nigeria but eventually decides to go back to the countries.
The source said the N100,000 is not accounted for and this is not a direction by the Controller general or the ministry of interior.
Few weeks ago, NIS said it has issued 38,000 visas on arrival to foreigners arriving Nigeria through the MMAI, Lagos, within the last 12 months.
The foreigners are predominantly from the United States, United Kingdom, China, South Africa, Kenya, India, Canada, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
“We also have people from other countries, but the fact is that more people are coming to Nigeria, especially for business purposes due to the ease of doing business policy,” the NIS added.
Source:BUSINESSDAY
