Visa travails

Sri Lankans are packing their bags and disappearing from the country in droves these days. Over 700,000 passports have been issued in 2022. Everyone is feeling hopeless and greener grass on the other side of the fence is appealing. There are many other countries to go to, who don’t seem to have the same dire problems we face here in Sri Lanka. Europe, UK, Australia, Canada, USA are some of the most sought-after countries by Sri Lanka’s middle class.  These countries will accept them, allow them to work and earn, or study, and most probably allow them to stay on and have a life there if they wish to do so. For most of these countries, a permanent residency visa (PR) is only about 3 years away from them living in that country.

But what is the attitude of Sri Lanka, towards people from these countries who want to make Sri Lanka their home? It is one of the most discriminatory, biased and paranoid attitudes ever found anywhere else in the world. Firstly, there is nothing called a permanent residence visa (PR) here. The paranoia Sri Lanka has of anybody foreign is most palpable and visible in the department of Immigration and Emigration. While Sri Lankans abroad are lapping it up like ice cream, Sri Lanka immigration haven’t even heard of PR yet. Even if a foreigner has lived here for 25 years, you need to go and renew your visa every year, or two. I had the opportunity to listen to a group of foreigners and their visa travails at a gathering, courtesy of a Sri Lankan friend who is married to one of them. All of them were long timers, some had lived here for 50 years. A much longer period than they’ve lived in their own countries.

One Englishman who had lived here for 25 years went for a spouse’s visa at the end of his BOI work visa, because he retired from work. He was granted a measly one year of residence visa under spouse’s visa category. The fact that he has been married to a Sri Lankan for the last 23 years, didn’t count. That fact he lived here for the past 25 years, didn’t count. Even the fact that he loved this country immensely and served Sri Lanka in a highly specialised field for 25 years didn’t count either. The fact that he paid the Sri Lankan government taxes, for the past 25 years didn’t count.  He’ll have to trundle to the Sri Lanka immigration department again next year too, stand in queues of 4 hours or more, to beg for the miserly one/two-year spouse visa Sri Lanka immigration will give him next year too. An annual, or biannual pilgrimage to the immigration Dept is required from him as long as he lives, may be for the next 35 years. In contrast, if roles were reversed, and his Sri Lankan wife had gone to HIS country, UK, to live, she would have been granted a spouse visa immediately, and given a permanent residence visa within 3 years, if she lived there continuously. Why can’t Sri Lanka reciprocate for the millions of Sri Lankans who are accepted and found a home in the UK?

An Australian had the worst experience recently, he went to renew his Sri Lankan driver’s license and was given only one year of extension of his driving license, because that was the visa duration he had on his works visa. He and his family have been here for the last 10 years. They have to renew their visa every year through a rigorous application process with medicals at exorbitant costs. He’s had a 10-year Sri Lankan driving licence for the past 10 years because there was no throttling discrimination at that time he came to Sri Lanka. But now he is expected to renew his driving licence every year! Is he going to forget how to drive after one year? What has the Department of Motor Traffic got to do with the visa??  Driving license is a certificate of driving competency, nothing else. This Australian is one of the most disciplined and courteous of drivers I’ve ever seen. After charging him an exorbitant amount of money, RMV issues him a one-year extension of his driving license, while incompetent Sri Lankan drivers get 10 years license to kill, paying a pittance.  This looks like a ruse to extort maximum money from the foreigners every year and one example of the total discrimination foreigners’ face in Sri Lanka government departments. Is this discriminatory and derogatory action, a dumb RMV officer’s own interpretation of the law, or actually a government directive?  What if Australia followed Sri Lanka’s action in a tit for tat move and started discriminating against the thousands of Sri Lankans living there?  Can we blame them if they did? To add insult to injury, a few days ago this Australian’s wife went for her driving license renewal and the same thing happened. The only difference was, because her Sri Lankan residence visa had only 5 months till renewal, her driving license was renewed only for 5 months too! What a disgraceful institutionalised scam! We appeal for the foreigners to come here, bring in their money here, invest here, but will they do that when they are discriminated against at every turn and we try to rip them off at every turn, just like street tout do with tourists?

A Swiss couple said they were on business visa for the past 50 years but still it ‘costs’ them to get this every five years. A French couple had the same experience. Their story is sad. Their two sons who were born here, grew up here, and who considers Sri Lanka their own country, could not remain here and had to leave once they were adults at 18 yrs. They were considered foreigners when they grew up. Imagine the confusion of a child when he is told such by the country they have loved and beheld as their own all their lives. Now, they have to come on tourist visas for a month or so when they visit their ‘motherland’, where their parents still live. These parents too have been living here for more than 30 years. It is the predicament of most of these Sri Lankan born children of long-term expats.

I think it’s time Sri Lanka caught up with the rest of the world in this regard and embraced the ones who love this country genuinely. They have proved this beyond doubt, by living here and bringing massive amounts of foreign currency over the years. Their expertise has served Sri Lanka well. In fact, Sri Lanka should promote itself as a retirement heaven. It’s a market Malaysia has tapped very successfully over years. With the Sri Lankan hospitality and the high level of medical care available, this should be the obvious path. No foreign investors will be looking at Sri Lanka now with its prohibitive taxes and import restrictions in place at the moment. Countries like Bangladesh and India have overtaken Sri Lanka economically with their open and welcoming regulations for investments and Sri Lanka has suffered with its ever-shifting foreign policies and the paranoid view of the foreigners who want to live here. It is high time Sri Lanka shed its unwelcome and inhospitable practices and embrace the genuine people who want to come and make Sri Lanka their home.

Citizen S