VISA delays leave Solomon Islands students bound for PNG stranded

Solomon Islands students bound of Papua New Guinea for studies are stranded as their VISA applications are yet to be processed by  Immigration department in Port Moresby,the Solomon Star reports.

One student was informed by PNG High Commission office in Honiara that all the applications sent by National Training Unit (NTU) in Honiara are still with Solomon Islands High Commission office in Port Moresby as of yesterday.

The reason was because most of the applications are not completely filled up, which led to the Immigration department refused to process them.

The news was not welcome by the students since academic classes are expected to start this week and next week.

However, one officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had informed one student that he hopes the visa applications should be ready by the end of this week.

The officer said, the Ministry is using diplomatic channel to try and fast-track the visa processing for the students.

This came after Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade, Milner Tozaka met with his counterpart from PNG, Rimbink Pato in Honiara on Monday.

Most students are now running out of patience after getting same feed-back from NTU and PNG High Commission office everyday.

They hope this kind of delay should not happen in future and needs to be addressed through the Melanesian Spear Head Group (MSG) meeting.

PNG has shifted the visa processing back to Port Moresby February last year after a standoff with Australia.

This resulted in PNG banning visas on arrival for all Australian visitors, after the Abbott government refused to return the favour to their nearest neighbour.

Solomon Star