The populace must brace itself; an invasion is imminent, not by the Tigers but by a Dad's Army of retired old geezers. That at least is what a new policy by the Department of Immigration seems set to achieve.
According to the Sunday Observer, "The Government has given approval to the Department of Immigration and Emigration to go ahead with a special resident visa scheme that would woo senior foreign nationals on retirement to spend the rest of their life in the country.
The Department expects its new scheme - a dream home for foreigners would attract more senior foreign nationals to the country with their savings which would contribute to boost the national economy especially in tourism, real estate and other related sectors which have currently faced a setback due to the drop in the number of tourists."
It seems like only yesterday that the country was trying to restrict foreigners from buying land, a 100% tax on land purchases has been in operation since around 2004 to discourage this. There was also an outcry against paedophiles, homosexuals and other undesirables entering the country not to mention charges of neo-colonialism and cultural imperialism being leveled at many people.
Never mind, the Department of immigration has retained an important control: the resident visa is valid for only two years and will be renewable depending on the conduct of the visa holder. “We will review the scheme to check whether it is suitable and whether the foreigners will benefit from it”, said Abeykoon, Controller General of Immigration.
Good thinking. We can collect their cash and then boot them out in two years, clever no?
1 comment:
That tax was absolutely ridiculous. My old peeps were looking at buying some real estate up country about 2 years back and put that idea on the back burner. Dad recently heard about the potential changing of the laws and now they're seriously considering things again.
As much as the old rules used to be bogus in some parts, I still think those effing pedos should be barred from coming.
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