Ghanaians travelling to US to fill visa application online

Come April 1, 2010, Ghanaians travelling to the US will fill their visa application forms online. They will not have to buy paper forms anymore.

And with this new system, an applicant will get an appointment for an interview in five to six weeks after submission of the form.

At a brief interactive ceremony at the US Embassy in Accra Monday February 22, 2010, Mike Evans, head of the Consular Section of the Embassy introduced the new web-based application process to journalists.

The system exists in over 20 US posts globally, he said, and Ghana is the latest addition.

Evans said filling the form is easier and an applicant, who is unable to complete the filling of the form, can save it onto a disk or pen drive and continue another time.

Applicants can upload photos directly onto the system, but if the photos do not meet the system’s specifications, the photo will be rejected.

According to Evans, if an applicant is unable to upload a photo during the initial filling of the form, the applicant can take along a photo to the Embassy during appointment and Embassy staff will upload it.

He however warned the public to desist from using brokers who claim they have special links with the Embassy. He said “No one has special relations with Embassy.” In other words no individual or group of people have a special relations with the Embassy to assist applicants to acquire visas.

He also warned applicants to take note of the websites on which they fill in the forms. All US government websites that are legitimate must have the .gov extension.

The link to the application form will be available on the US Embassy’s Ghana website by middle of March and the system will come into operation on April 1, 2010.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi