Emulate United Kingdom on visas

The United Kingdom’s move to reduce the processing period for visas to three weeks for Kenyans seeking to travel there is commendable and should be emulated.

This is a major boost to Kenyans travelling to the UK for engagements such as education and business.

The UK—and other countries across the globe—receive many travellers from Kenya every year. These travellers had been stranded for months due to the biting backlog of unprocessed visa applications, which affected students, tourists, businessmen and other travel groups.

The joy that greeted the announcement cannot be overstated.

Other countries where Kenyans have been facing similar visa processing delays should, therefore, take a leaf from the UK and ease the process of acquiring a visa.

While it is understandable that many countries have been facing a major headache of processing millions of visas due to the backlog occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic, the countries should pull up their socks and make the process quicker.

The opportunity cost of delayed visa processing is huge.

Kenyans are a travelling community and love to travel everywhere including other African countries, Europe, North America, South America, Asia, the Middle East and Australia.

These delays mean these individuals miss key family events, business deals and other opportunities, never mind the huge sums of money they had used to apply for the visa.

These countries should thus consider giving Kenyans visas on arrival to quicken and make more affordable visiting them, a move that portends benefits for all parties involved.

It would also be reciprocity of the friendlier visa regime that Kenya has which offers travellers from some of those countries where they can get their visa on arrival in Kenya.