Since January 2015, the consulate is taking an average of two months to stamp a work visa
KARACHI: I would like to bring to attention of the quarters concerned the inordinate delay in the stamping of work visas at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Karachi. According to travel agents, this is due to a huge backlog of passports which has accumulated there in previous months with the reason for this remaining unknown.
The normal processing time for work visa stamping used to be five to seven days till 2014. However, since January 2015, the consulate is taking an average of two months to stamp a work visa. This is causing serious problems to applicants who have job offers from Saudi Arabia since their employers are often not ready to wait that long for the visa stamping of their would-be employees. Many companies end up taking back their job offers. Moreover, there is no way the progress of an application can be tracked. An applicant having submitted his or her passport through an authorised person cannot track the progress, status and location of his passport. In addition, applicants are not allowed to contact or approach the consulate directly, and only authorised agents can submit the passports and collect them.
The Saudi consulate is clearly working in a haphazard manner. The media needs to raise this issue since applicants for jobs in Saudi Arabia are helpless, with no one there to hear their concern and many are losing their job offers as a result of the delay and inefficiency of the Saudi consulate personnel in Karachi.
(Name withheld at the writer’s request)
Published in The Express Tribune, March 17th, 2015.
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