Kenya police certificate, so frustrated

[Gretch 11]

So my Rwandese husband spent three years as a college student in Kenya, and he needs a Certificate of Good Conduct (police clearance certificate). Fine.

There's plenty of information online about how to get one if you are no longer in Kenya. Most of the Kenyan embassies around the world have this information on their websites, and the one in the US even has an online form to fill out that you then sign and mail in with your fingerprints, taken at a local police station.

But the embassy in Rwanda is absolutely refusing to do their job in this matter. Even when my husband carried a printout of the directions from the CID in Nairobi, they said it was wrong. Their claim is that because he was never fingerprinted in Nairobi when he lived there, getting fingerprints now is useless because they have nothing to compare it to. Which is not the point at ALL.

The embassy in Rwanda doesn't even need to do anything other than accept my husband's fee payment and give him a receipt to send in to the CID with his fingerprints, but they refuse.

ARGH! At this point my husband has been to the embassy three times, and the official is only digging his heels in. He is NOT going to admit that he was wrong.

The Kenyan embassy in the US would possibly process my husband's certificate if there was no embassy in Rwanda, but because there is, they say it is that embassy's job. They say it's very simple and they don't know why the embassy in Rwanda won't do it.

The only good thing is that it isn't a huge hardship for my husband to go to Nairobi and apply for the certificate in person; it's a short and inexpensive flight. It's just a waste of time, money, and stress when there's absolutely no reason for it. I'm also worried that he'll get to Nairobi and run into trouble there. My husband is used to bureaucracy and people saying "no" or "come back tomorrow" and does what he's told, whereas I (being a pushy American) will fight back.

I want to call the CID in Nairobi and ask if there is another way for my husband to pay the fee from Rwanda, since the embassy won't do their job, but none of the phone numbers I can find are getting through... !!! It says you can mail a check instead of the receipt, but I don't know what kind of check he could get in Rwanda that would be honored in Kenya. And then there's the issue of how to pay for return postage.

I can see from searching VJ that lots of people have had trouble getting police certificates, especially from third countries. I wish I had realized what a headache this would be when we started the process, because we would have gotten going with the PCCs earlier. But when I looked online and it was so straightforward for Kenya, I didn't worry about it. I was more concerned that he might get a PCC and it would expire before the visa was issued, so we held off.

But if anyone has any other ideas please let me know... If only he lived in Malaysia or Japan or Germany (or here in the US!) the embassy would know what they were doing.

This is like trying to get married in Rwanda all over again... paperwork is a full time job!

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

Sounds like a nightmare, sorry can't help, just sounds familiar to some of our paper chases.

Can you take an 'official embassy request' letter (they like it stamped) to the place and request it ?

Can you go higher up the ladder to speak to another supervisor ?

At one time we went all the way to the Minister of the Interior, unsuccessfully I might add, but perhaps you can

speak to a higher official.

[Gretch 11]

Update: my husband ended up going to Nairobi to get his Certificate of Good Conduct. Happily, they processed it without too much difficulty (he did have to go back to his school and get a letter confirming he was there, in addition to his diploma and transcripts... not sure what the point of that was). But because he applied in person, the CID says they can't mail his certificate to Rwanda, it has to be picked up in person! Love that bureaucracy. Luckily, an old friend is willing to pick it up and mail it. The CID said it would take 30 days. Here's hoping there are no more glitches.