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Govt. backpaddles on visa issue but questions still remain
View(s):By Sandun Jayawardana
The agreement signed between the government and GBS Technology Services, IVS Global-FZCO and VFS VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd. to handle documents related to electronic and on-arrival visas to enter Sri Lanka, remains for now. The introduction of the new visa regime on April 17 threw the entire process into chaos with critics pointing to the exorbitant fees being levied after the rollout and the move to remove the 30-day single entry visa for foreign tourists applying online.
Following a massive public outcry, the Cabinet which met on Monday decided to reinstate the 30-day visa for foreign tourists visiting Sri Lanka. The visa will cost US$ 50, with US$ 40 going to the government and the balance US$ 10 to VFS Global, Tourism Minister Harin Fernando told the Sunday Times.
The 30-day visa was the most practical and popular category among tourists and its omission left even visitors wanting to stay for under a month having to pay US$ 75 for a minimum three-month entry permit. Additionally, US$ 18.5 and US$ 5 are charged as “service” and “convenience” fees by the outsourced companies.
At Monday’s Cabinet meeting it was further decided to continue with the free visa service currently offered to citizens of seven countries; India, China, Russia, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
The PMD also stressed that the Department of Immigration and Emigration will assume full responsibility for issuing relevant visas upon entry into the country for foreigners.
“Amidst the notable progress in the country’s tourism sector, numerous stakeholders within the industry have recently urged President Ranil Wickremesinghe to maintain the maximum visa fee for foreigners at US$ 50,” the President’s Media Division (PMD) said in a statement. The statement added the stakeholders also highlighted that the decision “stands as significant support for the future growth of the tourism industry.”
Meanwhile, an Expert Committee appointed to study the feasibility of granting free visas to tourists met for the first time on Friday (10). The committee will explore matters such as the benefits of granting free visas, how it will impact the country and the structure of an overall visa policy the country should have, a committee member who wished to remain anonymous said. The team will also study the Cabinet Paper submitted jointly by the Ministries of Tourism, Public Security and Foreign Affairs proposing the granting of free visas to 67 countries. The 11-member committee is headed by Additional Secretary to the President Chandima Wickramasinghe and comprises officials from the Ministries of Public Security, Tourism and Foreign Affairs, Department of Immigration and Emigration, Sri Lanka Tourism, the Presidential Secretariat, an external Financial Consultant and representatives of three tourism associations. The committee has been asked to submit its report within a month.
Minister Fernando meanwhile, said he hoped that the committee will recommend the expansion of the free visa programme. He said that he did not have an issue with higher fees being imposed on longer term visas such as the 6-month multiple entry visa. However, he maintained that he was unaware of the charges imposed by VFS Global when the proposal was introduced.
The Cabinet is also conducting an evaluation on matters such as how the contract for VFS came to be awarded and how the situation got to this point. “There are questions that still need to be answered,” he noted.
The controversy came up in Parliament this week. Chief Opposition Whip Lakshman Kiriella insisted that the gazette that had been approved had only mentioned the increase in visa fees and had made no mention of charges for VFS Global. “Visa fees and the charges for VFS are completely separate things. The gazette has not approved charges for VFS,” said Mr Kiriella. He said Parliament had been misled on the matter and that charges for VFS had been introduced illegally under the guise of increasing visa fees.
Public Security Minister Tiran Alles said in his response that only the proposal to increase visa fees was presented to Parliament. The agreement regarding VFS was presented to Cabinet, and was thereafter evaluated by a Cabinet-appointed committee. That committee studied the proposal over three months and submitted its recommendations. The proposal was then sent back to Cabinet and subsequently approved.
“How can Cabinet approve charges for VFS? It is Parliament that has powers over public finance. You can’t levy charges for VFS based on a Cabinet decision,” Mr Kiriella shot back.
Minister Alles though, said there was no need to bring the VFS proposal before Parliament and that the process had followed all procurement guidelines.
Opposition legislators are questioning why the online and on-arrival visa processing was suddenly outsourced through a contract when national telecom provider SLT-Mobitel had already part-upgraded the existing ETA system at the request of the Immigration Department at no cost to the government.
Meanwhile, the abrupt rollout of the new visa regime and the subsequent confusion has resulted in Sri Lanka’s image taking a battering among tourists. On global travel forums such as Tripadvisor for example, tourists continue to complain about the difficulties they have experienced due to the new changes. Some who had paid for their visas under the previous Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system before the introduction of the new system operated by VFS have written of their confusion regarding whether they now have to pay again and apply under the new system. Several have stated that they had already paid for multiple entry permits at great cost before the government reintroduced the 30-day single entry visa and are unsure if they will now get a refund on their money.
Further concern and embarrassment came this week when popular YouTuber Will Davis, known as “Trek Trendy,” identified a serious data breach involving VFS. Mr Davis, who has nearly one million subscribers on YouTube, said on social media that though his visa for Sri Lanka had been approved, he had been getting visas of other tourists emailed to him every day containing personal details including full names, addresses and passport information.
The whole new visa process lacked any transparency and was chaotic from the start, said an Immigration officer who wished to remain anonymous. He said the changes forced tourists to pay exorbitant fees for visas prior to the reintroduction of the 30-day single entry visa following the backlash. Following the backlash, he noted that it is the Immigration and Emigration Department that is now handling all documentation when it comes to issuing visas to tourists on arrival, while VFS is now only involved in the processing of electronic visas.
The officer said they encountered one tourist who had paid almost US$ 700 in total for visas for herself and her two children and was distraught at having to pay so much for visas alone.
The chaotic rollout and the lack of transparency has caused severe damage to the country’s image in the eyes of tourists, the officer said. He also claimed issues such as the data breach identified by the YouTuber will only make matters worse. “People lose trust and once that happens, it’s extremely difficult to win it back.” The officer added that he was unsure why the Immigration Officers’ union had not raised these matters publicly thus far.
On Thursday (9), Parliament’s Committee on Public Finance (COPF) summoned Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security Viyani Gunathilaka and Controller General of Immigration Harsha Ilukpitiya for an examination into the visa issue. COPF Chairman Dr. Harsha De Silva stated on X, formerly known as Twitter that the committee directed the Controller General of Immigration to immediately attend to the data breach that was exposed by YouTuber Trek Trendy as a top priority.
COPF will meet again on May 14 to continue its examination into the issue. Dr De Silva said this was all they could state to the media at present given the ongoing and sensitive nature of the matter.
| Outsourcing online and on-arrival visas: Tripartite agreement with VFS By Mimi Alphonsus and Namini Wijedasa The Sri Lankan Government’s 12-year “outsource” agreement for online and on-arrival tourist visa processing involves three companies: the Singapore-registered GBS Technology Services; the UAE-registered IVS Global-FZCO; and the Dubai-headquartered VFS VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd. IVS Global-FZCO is a “Free Zone Company”, a model which is unique to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that allows for a high degree of confidentiality. According to authenticated company registration documents obtained by the Sunday Times, GBS Technology Services shares its address in Singapore and its Secretary with an entity called the Camelot Trust which “provides corporate and trustees services in Singapore to clients around the world”. One of the GBS Technology Services’ Directors, Jean-Noel Marcel Coster, is also Head of Investments at Camelot Trust, according to his LinkedIn profile. The Secretary, Anita Chew Peck Hwa (married name Ricquier), is the Founder and Managing Director of Camelot Trust. The registered address of GBS and Camelot Trust is 137, Telok Ayer Street, #08-01, Singapore 068602. The GBS website advertises clients including the Government of India, Malaysian High Commission, Greek Embassies, Qatar Airways, etc. However, their contact information only contains a UAE number, one general email address, a Sri Lanka eVisa contact form, and four Sri Lanka-specific emails addresses—e.g. info.srilankarus@gbstechnology.com. Meanwhile, all of their non-Sri Lankan clients are customers through their partnership with IVS Global Services (Pvt.) Ltd. which is incorporated in India and does document attestation for India’s Ministry of External Affairs as well as other visa and consular services. The GBS website also states the Managing Director of GBS is Kaviraj Bhandari who is a Director at IVS Global Services (Pvt.) Ltd. VFS, which is the only entity that issued a public statement about its contract with the Immigration Department, is the technology partner and mans the “front-end operations”. The government has not revealed the shareholding of each company in this joint venture (or other important details). VFS Global is headquartered in Dubai and Switzerland. Founded in India, it is now majority-owned by Blackstone, a private equity firm. It is not immediately clear why VFS was not given a direct contract—and why two other entities in the UAE and Singapore needed to be roped in— if it was document processing and data entry that the Immigration Department wanted done. These companies were granted the contract despite national telecom provider SLT-Mobitel having part-upgraded the existing electronic travel authorisation (ETA) system) at the request of the Immigration Department at no cost to the government. The fee was to have been US$ 1 per tourist application—not US$ 18.5 and US$ 5, which are the “service” and “convenience” charges added to visa fees under the IVS-GBS-VFS deal. According to a letter sent last month by SLT-Mobitel to Controller General of Immigration and Emigration I. S. H. J. Ilukpitiya, the company was “perplexed” to receive a communication from the Department’s Assistant Director of IT notifying it to stop the ETA site and its functions. Ms. Tharushi Gunathilake first wrote on April 5, 2024, at 03:07 pm, instructing SLT-Mobitel to halt the services starting at 11.59 pm the same day. “We were perplexed by this email, to say the least,” the company says. “However, at 3.32 pm on the same day (less than half an hour after the first mail), she has sent another mail requesting Mobitel to disregard her mail until she confirms the wind-up of ETA system.” There was confusion within both SLT-Mobitel and the Immigration Department, according to authoritative sources. Mobitel also maintains that under their agreement, the Department “has no right to terminate the said contract, in whole or in part, at any time for its convenience”. SLT-Mobitel’s upgrade of the ETA system was approved by Cabinet on August 24, 2021. The decision was conveyed to the company via a letter dated September 21, 2021. Mobitel claims that its first upgrade (done after November of that year) “resolved all the performance issues and cyber security aspects immediately to manage application volumes and to meet latest payment gateway requirements in order to ensure timely collection of applicable government revenues”. “The 1st part of the upgrade was carried out at the expense of SLT-Mobitel with anticipation of the Department awarding the 2nd part of the updated to SLT-Mobitel on the proposed commercial terms,” it states. Before this, however, in December 2023, the Immigration Department under the Ministry of Public Security entered into the agreement with the new parties. Under this deal, VFS employees at the airport enter the data of each visa applicant into a system that the Immigration Department accesses using a separate login. VFS collects the money from the passengers who thereafter go to the Immigration counters to have their passports stamped with the visas. | |
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