The United States Embassy in Abuja yesterday raised the alarm on the activities of a syndicate, it said specialises in selling appointments for visa interviews in Nigeria.
A Vice-Consul in the Embassy, Nadine Johnson, who spoke at the monthly briefing at the US Embassy, urged the public to assist in crushing the syndicate.
She said the embassy is concerned about the existence of such syndicate in Nigeria, adding that it was doing everything possible to deal with the situation.
Johnson said: “We do not charge extra cash apart from the $160 fee. People may try to buy up the appointments but we don’t encourage them to do that.”
“It is not our system at all, they (people) should never pay extra for it. The system is free apart from the $160 fees.
“Now that this has been brought to our attention, we are working to ensure that an appointment made is for the passport number that is given, we are trying to get that clarified,”she added
She said that the recent review of visa fees was not targeted at any particular countries.
According to her, the review was in line with the requirement of the US Congress that Consular Affairs cover the cost of visa processing.
“It is a world wide change, it is not country-based and the reason that we have to do it is that we are required by law to cover all the processing fees. There was a study that was done that indicated that we were not doing so, and we needed to change some other fees as a result of that.
“The fee change did take effect on April 13. However; we will accept receipt for payment prior to the fee change date all the way through July 12.”
TheNation