Kenyans applying for United States visa either for business, education or leisure travel have been facing significant wait times from six months to a year since the Covid pandemic struct the country.
Last month Africa’s 1oo metre champion Ferdinand Omanyala nearly missed out on the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Omanyala’s visa just like for many other Kenyans delayed and he arrived at the competition hours before his race.
What happened during Covid was that visa applications went down and some of our staff left to different jobs as there were no more visa applications
Meg Whiteman
Covid pandemic
During a visit to Kisumu on Tuesday August 30th, US Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whiteman shed light on why there has been a delay in the visa processing.
According to Whiteman, the visa backlog situation was caused by the Covid pandemic as many of their employees quit as they halted visa services.
We have been building staff to see if we can improve the visa backlog situation, I recognize the problem and we are working to solve it,
Meg Whiteman
“What happened during Covid was that visa applications went down and some of our staff left to different jobs as there were no more visa applications,” she said.
What next?
Whiteman however expressed her commitment towards addressing the application backlogs.
“One of my top priorities is to reduce the Visa backlog faced by Kenyans travelling to the US,” said Whiteman.
“We have been building staff to see if we can improve the visa backlog situation, I recognize the problem and we are working to solve it,” she furthered.