Crtd 05-01-01 Lastedit 14-08-20

Immigration

Next week, my passport will be decorated with a 3 year visa for Uganda. Provided I bring $ 260.
Since the Ugandan earns one dollar a day, it will be easy for the reader to see how many days he has to work to collect the dollars mentioned on this page.
When did I start preparing for my immigration in Uganda?
Let me think. It is now the first week of 2005.
I started early 2002. Three years ago.
My initial, very naive, idea was to tell the Uganda immigration that I intended to live the rest of my life, insurance expectancy 28.34 years at that moment, in Uganda, spending all my hard currency savings and pension claims here, boosting the local economy, trade balance and the Ugandan foreign buying power.
This however, turned out to be not allowed. The Ugandans do not want such people in their country.
There is a limited number of titles for immigration. I mention:

• Single Entry: Three months for $30 (extendable for free as long as you stay in the country)

• Multiple Entry 6 month: $80

• Citizenship: A long journey along officials in which you have to give up all other nationalities

• Agriculture and Mining: you need land title and a long journey along local officials, with a plan to be specified in minute details.

• Business and Trade: you bring in $100 000.and a long journey along officials (reminder: every Ugandan who succeeds to lay his hands on more than 10% of such a sum immediately brings it abroad!)

Since every official on your way is slow and stubborn unless given a bribe, I finally decided to opt for:

• Class G (Employees). You need: Academic qualifications, appointment letter, proof of failure to employ a Ugandan.  

So, without needing money, I started a job search. Not long after, I found an "unpaid"  - paid all right but I was the one paying - job. Within circles of my employer the dossier tossed around some desks. I had to pull it from under the carpet every now and then, not unlike the way one needs to do in circles of government officials. Finally, half a year ago,  it shot out to the Uganda immigration. There seem to be a lot of desks there too. Everybody in Uganda, receiving whatever request, is postponing the answer to see whether or not they get a visit by someone carrying some money. Then, after a while, with a sigh of disappointment, one puts the stamp and forwards.The official list of requirements "Class G" also mentions an investment letter and income tax clearance, probably errors at the typing desk. Anyway, I was not asked for those documents. I was asked to give a detailed account of my career and academic certificates, which was nowhere required in writing.
I pay, interest included for the next three years the equivalent of 9 single entries, which would have required no additional money and effort, nor the requirement of having a "job".
I also once was stopped by a policeman, who, after seeing he could not get any money out of me, claimed to know the way to make me a genuine Ugandan passport. It would probably have cost me less, and have given me free access to Kenya and Tanzania, who now, even with my work permit, keep charging me $50 for every entry.
During this process, I considered starting a local Ugandan branch of an NGO (Non Governmental Organization, or Foundation), to help people here. After having read the terrifying list official requirements, realizing that every single requirement was put in place to give some government elite crony some possibility to eat from your projects, as is the Ugandan expression, I decided not to pursue that issue.
Recently, I read that African countries are complaining about the labour intensive bureaucratic procedures they have to go through when applying for western aid and development funds!

Continuation: Legal.