Members of the Rotary Club in Nigeria have expressed anger over nonrefund of N38m fees paid to Portuguese Embassy for the processing of visas the embassy has failed to issue.
Investigations by National Mirror showed that the Rotarians, who are currently preparing to attend the 2013 Rotary International Convention in Lisbon this month, had approached the embassy through an ad hoc committee in August 2012.
The committee then sensitised all Rotarians listed to attend the convention and encouraged them to participate.
"We packaged Rotarians' documents, including their guests.
"About 650 applications were treated by the committee and forwarded to the agents with visa fee and agency fee of 100 Euros per applicant," the past president of the club and chairman of the convention planning committee, Ify Ejezie, told National Mirror.
"From District 9110, about N14m was paid into the said account while a total of about N38m were paid by the three districts in Nigeria," she added.
"A private Euro account in the name Chrome Executive Services with Ecobank, Abuja Branch with Number 0064419250 was given to us (including Districts 9140 and 9125) to remit all monies in Euro."
Ejezie said the committee started sensing danger in March 2013 when the Portuguese embassy which had earlier granted waivers on some requirements made a reverse and started asking applicants to make available additional documents to process their applications.
According to her, "On March 6, 2013 the Ambassador undertook to issue Portuguese visas instead of Schengen visa, which the Rotarians accepted.
"The Ambassador later confessed that he made a mistake for undertaking to issue the Portuguese visas, rather he now confessed to us that they have been shut down till June as they do not have the equipment and capacity to issue visas.
"No single visa was issued to any Nigerian, rather they choose to hide under the disguise that everybody in Nigeria were rejected including high profile Rotarians from the three districts, to enable them keep the visa fees paid to them," Ejezie said.
The European Union eventually intervened and appointed German Embassy to begin the process afresh of issuing visas to the Rotarians.
When National Mirror contacted the Portuguese Embassy, it acknowledged that it received several visa requests from the Districts of the Rotary Club International in Nigeria but denied the club members' claims that no visa was approved to any Nigerian.
"It is not true that no visa was granted to any Nigerian, rather to the 358 members of Rotary Club whose requests were sent to Portugal. The final decision on visa matters is taken in Portugal. Hundreds of visas were annually issued to Nigerians who fulfilled the requirements," the Consular Section of the Embassy said.
It said, initially the Rotary Districts approached the Consular Section stating that the total applications should not be more than 600 but eventually they presented 2,065.
The Embassy added: "The Rotary Club Districts were advised at a meeting at this Embassy, on January 28, 2013, that they should present their documents duly organised, latest February 28, to this Embassy, so that they could be processed and sent to Portugal before the deadline of March 15. To do so, they were advised that it would be convenient to use the services of an agency/person with knowledge of Portuguese and English languages and visa processing to help them.
"Effective March 15, the Schengen system of issuance of visas was changed and as the Consular Section of the Embassy could not issue the new visas Portugal asked Germany to represent it for Schengen visas matters."
"The remaining one thousand seven hundred and seven applicants from the Rotary Club that could not have their visa forms processed had their visas fees refunded directly to their respective Districts, more than one month ago," the Embassy said.
It further added, that the Embassy is not responsible for the refund of the fees paid to the agency or any person who helped to organise their applications.
"The Consular Section of the Embassy sent 358 applications to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lisbon for final decision.
"In another meeting, the Embassy informed personally the Governors and District representatives of Rotary Club on the decision about their demand. By courtesy, they were told that the visas were rejected. The fees for these visas are not refundable."
Nigerian Ambassador to Portugal, Ijeoma Bristol, when contacted told National Mirror that the embassy is aware of the issue. "It is currently being handled through diplomatic channels," Bristol said.
The German Embassy that is now handling the visa processing for the club also told National Mirror that "prior to the applications of the Rotary members, no fees have been transferred to the German government, meaning that the German Consulate General, which is part of the Federal Foreign Ministry of Germany, has never received any visa fees for the handling of visa applications on behalf of Portugal."
