When the Sierra Leonean community we heard about the appointment of Mr. Jongopie Siaka Stevens as Ambassador to represent our country in this part of the world, we were very optimistic that he was going to do his best to change the rotten system that had prevailed at our embassy in Germany for more than a decade.\u00c2\u00a0 Particularly (we) the APC loyalist were very proud of having him since unlike his other brothers; he had hitherto worked at a low profile in the Ministry of Health in Freetown, regardless his status as one of former president Siaka Stevens\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 sons.\u00c2\u00a0 We even chanted BRAVO!, BRAVO!, BRAVO!, When he quickly announced the relocation of our embassy from the fealty building in Bohn where it existed for decades, to the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s capital Berlin.\u00c2\u00a0 (Photo: Ambassador Jongopie Siaka Stevens)<\/p>\n
Contrarily to our expectations however, the embassy seemed to be working with the same old pattern as we realised with great disappointment, that all charges for consular services at the embassy have been skyrocket after Ambassador Stevens\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 arrival<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The worse of it all is citizenship renunciation process. \u00c2\u00a0It must be noted that the German government has the policy of verifying naturalising applicants through their home embassies before granting them German citizenship. After meeting all the prerequisites including citizenship examination (Einb\u00c3\u00bcrgerungstest<\/em>), German language proficiency (Sprachnachweis<\/em>) and many, many other procedural protocols that will cost the applicant a lot of time and money, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a normal policy that the already prepared German passport shall be sent to the home embassy of the applicant for final delivery. The German government is doing so with the hope of minimizing the possibility of granting their citizenship to the wrong person.\u00c2\u00a0 Diplomats at our embassy who knows that every second Sierra Leonean in the country is desperate to give up his\/her Sierra Leonean citizenship and that the particular applicant, whose passport has been sent to them for onward delivery, had gone through all those herculean bureaucratic barriers in order to posses the precious German \u00e2\u20ac\u0153P\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s usually called, are now ceasing the opportunity to heat on a get-rich-quick scheme of breath-taking simplicity by extorting fabulous sum of Euros from the successful applicant before releasing to him\/her the German \u00e2\u20ac\u0153P\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as if it was prepared at Immigration headquarters in Freetown.<\/p>\n The Ghanaian embassy is requesting \u00e2\u201a\u00ac190<\/span> for citizenship renunciation process; Nigerian embassy requests \u00e2\u201a\u00ac200<\/span> which will cover correspondences including postage by DHL since such decisions are endorsed directly by their respective home governments. \u00c2\u00a0Unlike the Sierra Leonean embassy, which only states few lines and sign by whosoever is in charged without consulting anybody at home, is increasing the fees on daily bases.\u00c2\u00a0 I paid \u00e2\u201a\u00ac400<\/span> two years ago for renouncing my Sierra Leonean citizenship; others paid \u00e2\u201a\u00ac500<\/span> last year and some are now paying \u00e2\u201a\u00ac600<\/span>. But the baffling part of it is that every embassy in the country has a website where all charges for consular activities are clearly stated, except Sierra Leone. \u00c2\u00a0Click to see the Ghanaian embassy for example: http:\/\/www.ghanaemberlin.de\/<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s note worthy that citizenship is individual right; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s therefore undemocratic to charge someone for giving it up.\u00c2\u00a0 None of us would love to give up his\/her golden citizenship if only our leaders were honest in managing our affairs.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of us who hastily booked tickets to visit Sierra Leone in the last two years with the hope of witnessing positive changes came back to Europe with great disappointment as most of our colleagues were being chased by armed-robbers. We are giving up the Sierra Leonean passport because we are no longer proud of it in this part of the world.\u00c2\u00a0 The same embassy which is now extorting \u00e2\u201a\u00ac600<\/span> from us in exchange of the German citizenship is responsible for the existence of the Sierra Leonean passports in the hands of millions of notorious foreign prostitutes, credit card forgers and drug-dealers \u00c2\u00a0including Nigerians, Lebanese, Guineans, you name them. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Furthermore, when compared to countries like Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, the Gambia, which are relatively attractive destinations for western tourists and investors, Sierra Leone is far down the ladder interns of development, yet it renders the most expensive consular services in Europe.\u00c2\u00a0 The Nigerian and Ghanaian embassies in Berlin are requesting \u00e2\u201a\u00ac50<\/span> for a single entry tourist\/visitor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visa, which is normally valid for three months.\u00c2\u00a0 The Liberian embassy knowing full well that its country chiefly depends on foreign donors and therefore needs to encourage foreign visitors, is demanding \u00e2\u201a\u00ac150<\/span> for a whole-year visa.<\/p>\n Before Ambassador Stevens\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 arrival, the Sierra Leonean embassy which suppose to request the least, was requesting \u00e2\u201a\u00ac100<\/span> for a single entry visa.\u00c2\u00a0 Ridiculously enough, this amount has been increased to \u00e2\u201a\u00ac130<\/span>. Even infants born to Sierra Leonean citizens who carry German passports due to legal reasons are not exempted from such charges.\u00c2\u00a0 One must note that all embassies in the world normally charge for infants half of adult visa fees except the Sierra Leonean embassy in Germany, which extort the notorious \u00e2\u201a\u00ac130<\/span> for all ages.<\/p>\n Most of us are APC party loyalist though, but we have realised that if situation remain unchecked as we continue to exercise blind-loyalty by keeping our mouths shut and our critic-fingers off our keyboards, we might finally loose all our bases of political influence to our antagonist.<\/p>\n The million dollar questions which remain unanswered are: who is stipulating those notorious fees being extorted from us and for what purpose is it being used?\u00c2\u00a0 Are the extorters really accountable to our home government? Is our Foreign Minister, Haja Hawa Zainab Bangura aware of it?<\/p>\n Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the Sierra Leonean community we heard about the appointment of Mr. Jongopie Siaka Stevens as Ambassador to represent our country in this part of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,1],"tags":[2653,2654,2655,2656],"class_list":["post-7191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-uncategorized","tag-ambassador-jongopie-siaka-stevens","tag-sierra-leone-embassy-germany","tag-sierra-leone-visa","tag-visas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}