Report coming in says the Liberian authorities by means of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has determined to alleviate the entire nation’s Honorary Consuls all over the world from representing the federal government.
However, it is a transfer that many believed might acutely pressure entry to consular providers by folks of Liberian descent in numerous international locations.
“I have been directed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemayah, Sr., through this communication, to formally inform you that the President of Liberia has approved new Regulations governing the appointment of honorary consuls,” Deweh Gray, the Deputy Minister for Legal Affairs on the Foreign Ministry wrote the consular workplace in Minnesota in a letter dated January 13.
“Under the new regulations all honorary consuls will cease to function as representatives of the government of Liberia.” In Minnesota and different Midwest U.S states similar to Illinois, North and South Dakota, the place tens of hundreds of Liberians stay, the choice might have a adverse impression on these requiring consular providers.
Liberia’s solely consular workplace in Minnesota, the U.S state with one of many greatest Liberian populations, serves an estimated 35,000 people. The Minnesota Consulate, earlier than its closure, supplied hundreds of Liberians within the Midwest with handy entry to passports, visas, and different consular providers.
But that’s now not the case since a lot of Liberians should now mail their functions or journey to Washington, DC, the place the embassy is situated or to the consulate in New York to submit their functions. The Minnesota Consulate was established greater than ten years in the past by the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
“The closure is premature and insensitive and would cause undue hardship for thousands of Liberians within the US Midwestern states who benefit from visa and passport services offered at the consulate,” the Association of Liberian Journalists within the Americas mentioned in a press assertion.
“It is at a loss as to why Minister Maxwell Kemayah and the Foreign Ministry are hell-bent on executing a policy that will create additional bottlenecks including the added financial expense for Liberians and foreigners traveling to Liberia,” the assertion added.
The blanket closure of all of Liberia’s Honorary Consul places of work worldwide, in keeping with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was triggered by a brand new set of laws, which ceased to have honorary consuls perform as representatives of the Government.
However, the Ministry is but to have the regulation in query printed regardless of asserting the outsourcing of the issuance of passports and visa providers to VFS Global.
VFS (Visa Facilitation Services) Global will now be accountable for operating of the newly opened passport software facilities in Chicago, Los Angeles, Pretoria in South Africa, Nairobi in Kenya, Melbourne in Australia, and New Delhi.
The firm processing often takes fifteen enterprise days from receipt by an Embassy of the whole software and should take longer throughout peak occasions and in distinctive circumstances. This estimate excludes the time of transport of functions.
“The services being provided by VFS Global will be solely to capture bio-metrics of persons wishing to acquire Liberian passports. All vetting and approval processes will be done from the Foreign Ministry in Liberia,” the Ministry mentioned in a communication, asserting the closure of the Minnesota Consulate workplace and all different consulate places of work worldwide.
A passport software, minus the service cost, would price US$100 per particular person, and the screening process, which was beforehand dealt with by the consulates, will now be dealt with by the Ministry in Liberia, which is notoriously sluggish.
And whereas the Ministry claimed that the federal government would open a brand new passport software heart in Roseville, Minnesota, visa providers would now be dealt with by the Embassy in Washington DC or the Consulate in New York as was accomplished up to now.
“While the letter from the Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the offices of the ‘Honorary Consulate’ in Minnesota serve to alleviate the hardships of Liberians having to travel to New York or Washington, DC for passport and visa services, yet it has opted to re-impose that hardship by prematurely shutting down the Consulate,” ALJA assertion famous.
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