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| British Prime Minister David Cameron |
OUTCRY against its £3,000 tourists visa
bond notwithstanding, Britain will commence the scheme in the six listed
Commonwealth countries in November, Financial Times report quoted the Home Office as saying.
The Commonwealth countries to be
affected by the policy which was announced in June are Nigeria, India,
Kenya, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The affected countries are considered to be source of “high risk” tourists to the UK.
Some visitors from the six countries,
under the scheme, will be asked to pay a £3,000 cash bond in return for
visitor visas that allow them to stay in the UK for up to six months.
According to official data, these six countries accounted for more than half a million visa applications in 2012.
There have been outpours of anger by governments of the affected countries, especially Nigeria and India against the policy.
A protest in India last month forced the
British Prime Minister David Cameron to declare that final decision had
not been taken on the policy, while the Nigerian government asked
Britain to renounce the scheme.
The Federal Government, through the
Foreign Affairs minister, Olugbenga Ashiru, had in June expressed “the
strong displeasure of the government and people of Nigeria” over the
“discriminatory” policy.
Ashiru warned British High Commissioner
Andrew Pocock at a meeting in the minister’s office in Abuja, barely 24
hours after the policy was announced, that the move would “definitely
negate” the two country’s commitment to double trade by 2014.
The minister told the British diplomat
that Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, had “a responsibility to
take appropriate measures to protect the interest of Nigerians who may
be affected by the proposed policy, if finally introduced.”
The British High Commission in Nigeria
after the meeting issued a statement quoting Pocock as saying that his
government planned to undertake “a very small scale trial of the use of
financial bonds as a way of tackling abuse in the immigration system
(which occurs when some people overstay their visa terms).”
He said that the details of the pilot
scheme were still being worked out and if it goes ahead in Nigeria, it
would affect only a very small number of the “highest risk” visitors.
“The vast majority would not be required
to pay a bond. Those paying bonds would receive the bond back, if they
abided by the terms of their visa,” he said.
More than 180, 000 Nigerians apply to
visit Britain each year and about 70 percent or around 125, 000 of these
applicants are successful, he said.
A Home Office official said the six countries highlighted were those with “the most significant risk of abuse”
The Home Office said on Friday that only
individuals deemed “high-risk” would be asked to pay the bond.
But some
officials admits that the mere mention of a bond would be enough to
deter visitors.
“In the long run, we are interested in a
system of bonds that deters overstaying and recovers costs if a foreign
national has used our public services,” an unnamed Home Office official
said.
Ashiru said on Sunday that the UK embassy had not communicated to his office the plan to commence the bond scheme.
““They have not communicated with me,” the minister said when The PUNCH sought his reaction to the latest development.
In the UK, luxury goods retailers have
denounced the plan as an “insulting deterrent” to wealthy tourists,
which will hit sales and damage London’s reputation.
They are urging the government to drop
the pilot, saying the restrictions will damage their business if
Commonwealth tourists – particularly Nigerians, now the sixth biggest
spenders on luxury goods in the UK – are put off.
“It’s embarrassing that our country
would consider these measures against visitors who spend so much in our
stores,” Managing Director of Harrods, Michael Ward, said .
“There seems to be a deeply frustrating
attitude in Westminster that they should do whatever they can to
actively prevent people coming to the UK,” Ward added.
Harrods is reputed to be the biggest department store in Europe, occupying a five-acre site in the royal precinct in London.
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