Harassments on going abroad
I have my visa in my hand. To join my job as a computer programmer in a country at middle-east region, all I need before purchasing my ticket is a clearance card from the government’s Burro of manpower, employments, and training (BMET). Without it airlines won’t sell ticket to me, because they won’t allow me to pass the airport without the clearance. So I needed the clearance badly, because I was running out of time.
The validity period of my visa was remaining about one month. And there was a heavy rush in the airlines at that region because of the upcoming “Hajj” – the biggest festival of the Muslim world at Mecca. All the cheap airlines are already booked for a long period. Only the most expensive one remained some vacancy for me. And still I had to purchase the ticket quickly.
So in a very morning I go to the BMEP office. On my entrance the guard challenges me and ask for which country I needed the clearance for. I give him the name. Immediately he shows a man outside and tell me to go with him, who will help me to complete the formalities. I follow him to nearest building to a Travel Agency office. There he tells me that I can not do this job myself. It is not possible. If I want it, I must give the job to a travel agency, who will do it for me for a handsome fee. Or else if I wanted to do it myself, I can just wonder from desk to desk in the office hopelessly, but they won’t do any help. I won’t even able to get an application form from the office.
Realizing the situation, I had no alternative of giving him the job to be done at the double of the original government cost. There was two tasks involved in the process. First I have to get registered at the government’s “Job Seeker” database. Only after getting my job seeker ID, I can apply for the clearance. The broker told me that I have to complete the registration process myself, and give him the ID. After that he will manage my clearance card.
I went to the nearest office to get myself registered. After standing on the queue for about an hour, I reached the officer to will receive my application, and give me a date of getting my ID. Before me everyone was getting a date about after an week. On my turn, I explained my situation to him and showed my visa expiration date. He kindly gave me the date of the following day. Later I’ve found that I was the only person of the day getting the date of following day.
On returning to the nearby travel agent office, I demanded the return of my passport from the broker, which I gave to him before going to the registration office. He told me to wait for one and half hour. In this time, he will manage the stamp sill from the office. After waiting for an hour, my passport arrived from the BMET office, with the clearence stamp on it with a blank space to write the registration ID no and date, and signed. I now need to write the registration number and date in the passport, which I myself can do. And they will give me a card of clearance, which I have to take after getting the registration ID. I paid the broker two third of the promised amount, took the passport, and returned home.
The following day, going to the registration office to get my ID card, they just told me that they won’t be able to give it to me today – “no way, our computer server it out of order, and we don’t know when will it be in order.” Standing there, I just didn’t know what to do. Still I am not sure, if I will be able to make my way to join my job in time.
Edit: Follow-up posts:
At last got my clearance
Action against BMET corruption
Kapalicana 