Residency process has become a biannual battle

I KNOW I’m pushing at an open door saying this but as so many expats are in the same boat and nobody has been told why.

I’m referring to the ongoing biannual battle for residency, which has now become a national joke.

I know fellow readers will have similar stories to tell but this is ours. Buoyed by the new “online” quick route to avoid the hell that is the Muhaceret building in Lefkoşa beloved by nobody here, we delivered all forms to İskele police station on February 16. They told us “four or five weeks”.

Not so. Using the account number given us we checked week after week then month after month to no avail. Finally, in desperation, we called in a favour from a guy at Eastern Mediterranean University in Gazimağusa who deals with the students and immigration there. After nine weeks he, too, has given up in despair.

Does anybody actually WORK there I ask? It is notorious, and always has been, for idle “workers” wandering round pretending to look busy and important when in fact they do nothing, thinking only of their 13 month bonus.

Can you imagine how we all felt six weeks ago when it was reported in Cyprus Today that that Aussie gangster had received INSTANT residency last year?

Now how could that have happened unless high-up palms were well and truly greased? This was proved when ministers tried to stop him being deported back to Turkey. No wonder the majority of Turkish Cypriots think this country is corrupt.

I know the TRNC is suffering from many “students” coming here putting extra pressure on them, but ordinary expats who have lived here for 20 years don’t deserve to be treated like this every two years.

The government should surely recognise this and make a special case for long-standing residents here like us, and indeed your very own Rev Walker, who is equally suffering.

Indeed surely we should be eligible for the “White ID Card” some folk have been lucky to get before they changed the rules.

Can somebody at Cyprus Today please “have a word” there so that we can at least cross South and buy the only cat food our difficult cats will eat before it runs out? Six months is a joke surely?

John and Barbara Grundey, Boğaz, İskele

Editor’s note: A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry told Cyprus Today that he will bring the issues raised to the attention of the Interior Minister Ziya Öztürkler and the relevant officials.