Sierra Leoneans holding diplomatic and service passports will no longer have to go through the inconvenience of traveling to a third country to secure visa to visit Germany, with the planned resumption of consular services in Freetown.
The English language programme of Germany public international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, reported on Tuesday that this development was made possible following an agreement between the Sierra Leone and German governments, paving the way for the latter to start providing “limited consular services” in Freetown. The report added that the deal, which takes effect this week, only affects persons holding diplomatic and service passports.
It will be the first time in over two decades since the Germans stopped issuing visa in Sierra Leone. They stopped at the height of Sierra Leone’s eleven years (1991-2002) civil war.
Since then Sierra Leoneans have had to travel to Guinea, and then to Ghana to apply for visa to travel to Germany. Not only does that cost fortune, but it is also inconvenient at many levels, given the difficulty in traveling within the West Africa subregion.
Germany is one of Sierra Leone’s major international development partners, alongside the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom.
Diplomatic relations between Sierra Leone and Germany started immediately after Sierra Leone gained independence in 1961, when Germany opened an embassy in Freetown.
The German Embassy was first closed in 1999, at the height of the civil war. It was reopened in 2003, but it operated at the level of a chargé d’affaires.
The German government appointed an ambassador to Freetown in 2007. But the mission never provided any consular service, until now.
While this is a welcome development, ordinary Sierra Leoneans are likely to ask why the gesture doesn’t extend to the larger population.
