Tit for tat: US alters visa needs
Barely a month after the Malawi Government introduced visa fees for all nationals from countries where Malawians are required to pay fees, the United States government has also reduced the maximum period of its visa expiry for Malawians.
According to information posted on US Embassy’s website on 20 October, the requirement took effect on October 16, but would not affect people who already hold long-term visas.
“With effect from 16th October, the visa reciprocity schedule for Malawi has been revised based on recent changes to Malawi’s visa requirements for US citizens, but current holders of US visas are not affected by this revision,” reads the information on the website.
US Ambassador to Malawi, Lisa Vickers, confirmed the development this week, saying her government is only reciprocating to what Malawi introduced early this month.
Vickers said there is little her government can do to change the new status as long as Malawi sticks to its new visa requirements.
Said Vickers: “Because of US government’s law on reciprocity, there is no way we can offer 10-year visa when Malawi has a one-year visa for Americans, so we are simply following what the law states.
“However, we are still discussing with Malawi Government to see if there can be a way of revising this, but that is going to be only if Malawi also revisits its visa requirements for US citizens visiting the country.”
Reacting to the development, Foreign Affairs Ministry public relations officer, Quent Kalichero, said the US is free to make amendments to some of its policies as it finds necessary just in the same way as Malawi found it necessary to revise its visa requirements for other nationals.
“As Malawi, we saw the need to introduce the visa fees for other countries which weren’t paying. Other countries can also introduce or revise visa requirements based on their laws or policies. In fact, there was a time around early 2000 that we decided to waive visa fee for some countries’ nationals because we wanted to encourage tourism, but that’s another issue. Obviously, US has an explanation to the raising of the fees and I don’t think it can be tit for tat,” said Kalichero.
The standard visa application fee for all categories of non-immigrant one-year visas is $160 (about K88 000) payable before the visa application interview.
The reciprocity fee payable upon issuance of the visa depends on the category of visa.
Foreign nationals visiting Malawi from Europe and Asia are now required to pay $75 (about K42 000) each at any point of entry into the country. n
