25 January 2011

NZ update - SA PCC

As I have probably mentioned before, as part of our emigration application we have to provide police clearance certificates from England and also South Africa as we have dual citizenship. We had acquired them but they only last 6 months and they had expired so we had to reapply for them. Even though we hadn't even entered the country since they had been issued. (Don't get me started.)

We applied for them last year. Once issued they were to arrive at Grant's parents' house in Cape Town, and they would send them on to us. A week ago Grant emailed his mom and asked her to check up on them. His email said, "On their site they say it takes 21 working days, well I've worked out if they received it on 22 Nov, then that's been 40 working days. Another website says it takes between 6 and 8 weeks and tomorrow will be 8 weeks passed. So maybe give it another couple of days and then ring them?"

She kindly did so and emailed back, "We've received no post for the last two days so this morning I started phoning - always no reply, just rings and rings - but I kept on trying and eventually got through - to an answering machine !!! Had to listen to minutes of jargon but I just waited until I at last heard a real voice. She told me that your (Grant) ID No had been entered into the system incorrectly !! Can you believe it !! She said she has now corrected it and I must phone again next Tuesday to inquire if they have processed the applications. How absolutely disgusting and annoying - they're unable to do much right. Anyway I'll phone early Tuesday again."

As you can imagine, we were so annoyed! Grant asked her about my application and she said that my application was just sitting next to Grant's. Aargh!

Anyhoo, thanks to my mom-in-law's diligence, here's what she emailed today: "Well I phoned them early this morning - well before 8.00am - and it was all good news !! The phone hardly rang before it was answered - not by an answering machine, but by a lady, Warrant Officer Kriel. When I inquired about you two and gave both ID numbers, I then had to hold on and wait for a very long time. But she eventually came back to me and said that they had both been posted off on Monday (yesterday)."

Good news!! Now for the fun of getting them here (the South African postal system isn't the most reliable. Spot the understatement). We're hoping that a friend who lives in the UK and is currently visiting SA will bring it back with him for us.

The only other thing we are waiting for is the physical copy of the job offer. Time to start putting pressure on them, methinks. Once we have that we can lodge our application and then things should start happening!

(Huge thanks to my mom-in-law for her help!!)


Pin It
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...