Because the Italian embassy in Dhaka is presently holding at least 20,000 Bangladeshi passports for verification, Antonio Alessandro, the ambassador, has asked all those seeking work visas to be patient and understanding of the embassy’s challenges.
“I invite everyone to be patient and to be understandable of the difficulties (at embassy) … So, my call to them is to, again to be patient and to entrust themselves only to official agents,” he told BSS at an interview on Thursday while describing the huge backlog at the visa issuing process.
The Italian embassy has been witnessing a surge of work visa applicants since July last year as many Bangladeshi fortune makers are targeting this wealthy European nation that host the largest Bangladeshi community residing in the European Union.
“This surge in this volume was unexpected, and the embassy was too small and the human resources were not able to cope with this surge of applications,” said the ambassador.
Alessandro stated that there are currently at least 20,000 passports in the Embassy and many more applicants waiting outside for an appointment in reference to the backlog of passports.
The Ambassador refuted the idea that more than 100,000 passports are stored at the embassy when he was contacted about it. “Certainly not it (the number of passport) is 100,000,” he responded. I’m not sure who called this number.
According to the envoy, the consular division discovered that at least one out of every five applications is accompanied by an irregular and difficult document, which is the primary cause of the delay in the visa processing.
“Why we have not been able to process all the applications in time is (because) many applications were accompanied by some false or illegal or counterfeited documents. Our estimate is one in five applications is accompanied by a problematic and irregular document,” he said.
Asked how long it will take to clear the entire backlog, the ambassador said that it is difficult to give an answer on when they will be able to clear the entire backlog as it depends on the problems that the embassy finds in each application.
He said the community of Bangladesh in Italy becomes larger and becomes more integrated and so attracts a number of people for family reunion, business tourism or family visits.
The ambassador said work visa is one category and there are other categories of visas – there are tourist visa, business visa, study visa, family visas and all these categories are growing in large numbers.
“All this is putting significant pressure on our embassy, and that explains the delay, because work visa is important, but also these other categories are also important, and our visa office has to work for all categories. So, I recognize that there are delays, and of course, we apologize to the public for this delay,” he said.
Under normal circumstances, the Italian visa system works with the passport and the applicant leaves the passport through the VFS Global. Then VFS Global brings this application and the passport to the Embassy.
“Now we are not keeping the passport anymore. So, applicants for working visa now only leave photocopy of the passport. They keep the passport with them so that they can travel and use the passport for other purposes,” he said.
He said that the embassy is committed to clearing the backlog and responding to all applicants whose passports are currently being verified there.
The envoy responded, “The pressure is for us only to do our job,” when asked if he was under any pressure from the visa applicants to reduce the backlog. hence more pressure is irrelevant in this situation.
The ambassador stated that several actions have been made, one of which is to purchase new space that will be larger and more useful for both VFS Global and the visa office.
“VFS also moved to a new facility, new visa application center, much larger and more functional and comfortable for applicants,” Alessandro said.
Second measure is that they have recruited the two local staff recently and some additional staff from the headquarters will be added.
Regarding the safe migration issue, the ambassador said there is a practice of paying middlemen very high amount of money to organize the transfer to Italy which is an illegal practice both in Italy and in Bangladesh.
He claimed that in many instances, the migrant pays this money without even knowing where he is going or what kind of labor he will be doing for which employer.
The Ambassador advised applicants to use caution when entrusting someone with their money to arrange their migration, to only use official agencies, and to decline to provide middlemen and brokers this substantial sum of money.
“Our official agency for visa processing is VFS Global. They are the only one authorized to collect documents for visa applications,” he mentioned.
According to him, there are four processes involved in getting a working immigrant into Italy: sponsorship by a business, an Italian government work permit, an Italian embassy visa, and admission through immigration control at the border.
“In fact, they, many of them (work visa seekers) are rejected because the sponsorship is fake or the working permit is counterfeited,” he said.
