Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.
OPINION: If you’d paid $57 million for a new visa processing machine, you’d expect it to be able to issue visas correctly, wouldn’t you?
Incredibly, at the time of writing, Immigration New Zealand’s (INZ’s) new ADEPT visa processing technology isn’t performing that crucial task.
Not that INZ will admit to it
At least, that’s what licensed immigration advisers (LIAs) are telling me. I asked INZ twice what are the main problems with ADEPT, and twice they wouldn’t say.
INZ does admit to “challenges” and “hitches” with the new system which have caused frustration, though it won’t list what they are.
So let me do it for you
ADEPT was introduced in March this year, costing $57 million, and so far about 200,000 applications have been “successfully submitted” on the new IT platform, according to INZ.
The hitches which INZ won’t tell you about include:
- Applications not able to be lodged
- Documents not able to be uploaded
- Documents uploaded but never reaching INZ and being “lost in space”
- Applications delayed because INZ is unaware that documents have been uploaded
- Automated requests for documents which are already on file
- Application forms which have been fully completed by clients but show missing details when they arrive on INZ’s screen
- Visas issued which are blank
- Visas issued with incorrect approval dates, incorrect visa conditions and incorrect client details.
In one mishap, which INZ owned up to, 3200 visitor visa applications lodged between 1 August and 21 September didn’t get processed at all because they “didn’t progress through the platform as expected” – that is, they got stuck, and INZ took several weeks to realise.
Do these problems happen all the time?
It’s fair to say that these problems have been intermittent. INZ keeps trying to fix them by taking their online ADEPT system down at short notice.
