Time is of the essence

BY WENDY ELLIOTT

welliott@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

Wolfville resident Spiwe Karipache-Scoggins has run up against a brick wall in an attempt to secure student visas for her two Zimbabwean nieces.

Her friend and lawyer Jean DeWolfe, QC, has written to the minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney and Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon for aid.

The two young women have paid their tuition for a year beginning this month and booked flights on the advice of the Canadian embassy in Harare, but cannot obtain visas to leave the country.

DeWolfe wants to know whether there is a moratorium on student visas for Zimbabweans. “If so, why is this not publicly advertised and their $500 (each) application fees refused?”

Time is of the essence, DeWolfe says.

Lost in the bureaucracy

The two young women, Diana Jigu and Epiphania Nyamahowa, had wanted to start at Kingstec in September, but DeWolfe suggests they got lost in bureaucratic paperwork at the embassy.

Writing to Consul General Barbara Richardson in November, Karipache-Scoggins detailed the procedures her nieces had followed.

She said she still does not understand why her nieces were never given a complete list of required documentation and then turned down by embassy staff.

The two nieces have spent over a year making applications. “We are really hurt, but we will keep praying that something comes up,” wrote Jigu.

The form letter she received indicates they were rejected because embassy staff were not satisfied that they would leave Canada by the end of the authorized period because they are not currently bona fide students.

“I feel like we have been toyed with and this is not getting taken seriously, professionally or diplomatically,” said Karipache-Scoggins.

Embarrassed and angered

Both DeWolfe and Karipache-Scoggins say they are embarrassed and angered that their tax dollars are funding what they can only assume is an abuse of power.

DeWolfe says, “the process is totally unacceptable and cannot be condoned. There is no excuse to continually demand documentation, one piece at a time, for changing deadlines, turning off fax machines and making a decision and yet failing to inform the applicant for two weeks (while still making further costly demands as if the application was still in process).”

She adds, “Spiwe Karipache-Scoggins is a model citizen, a registered nurse and an involved community member who values education. It is deeply disturbing for her to be treated this way.”

Kings-Hants MP Scott Brison said he intends to take up this specific visa issue with the two ministers involved.

Meanwhile, international aid agencies warned late in December that Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis was deepening, with a sharp rise in acute child malnutrition and a worsening cholera epidemic.

The World Health Organization says that 1,518 people had died of cholera and a total of 26,497 cases had been recorded since August in Zimbabwe.