Just in time for the busy holiday season, New Zealand announced Monday that it is opening a new Visa Application Center in Apia on November 4 Samoa time.
The center will be opened Monday to Friday between 9am and 4 pm. Currently the Visa Application Counter at the New Zealand High Commission in Apia is only opened one hour each day. This will close on November 1st.
The announcement from New Zealand Immigration (NZI) comes at the back of questions over New Zealand’s ‘Treaty of Friendship’ amidst the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui.
But the new service offered isn’t free. Customers wanting to submit visa applications in person are required to do so with a service fee of ST$90 per application.
With the existing service, there are always long lines of people waiting outside the High Commission in Apia to submit their visa applications to travel to New Zealand.
Taumu Tuivanu told the Samoa Observer, “The system they have in place should have been changed a long time ago. You have seen how our people line up outside the Apia office without chairs or shade for just one hour a day to submit visa applications and that shows how our people are being treated like we are still in the colonial times.”
Photo: Samoa Observer
