Working Legally

Batugade border - Timor Leste side 

Atambua border- Indonesia side

Finally, I am a legal worker in Timor Leste! But securing it was never quick and easy. I had to extend my tourist visa twice and had an interview with the immigration officer after securing all the documents required to process the work permit.

Securing a visa prior to entering Timor Leste is not possible. Aside from having limited consular offices or embassy in other countries, they don’t allow it. The policy is to enter as a tourist, allow you to extend for two times and during the validity period of your visa extension; you have to secure all documents to start the processing of work permit. When your documents are complete, you would be interviewed together with the head of the organization by an immigration officer. The questions are standard like, what is your educational background, where have you worked before, what you are doing in your organization in Timor Leste, how would you transfer skills to locals. If you talk a lot, the more you encourage questions. I said this is standard because some ‘Malays’ (foreigners) have the same set of interview questions. Immigration Officers visit also your office as part of the process probably to validate its existence.

After the interview, you have to wait for them to inform you if your work permit is ready. It took 6 weeks after the interview before the immigration released my work permit and I learned this when our admin officer checked it from the labor office of MOFA. Otherwise, we wouldn't know if we have just waited for them to inform us. Immediately we went to the main office of MOFA to get the work permit only to learn that I have to exit Timor Leste so that my passport can be stamped with the work visa.

Yes, I cannot understand why I have to go to a border to get a work visa stamp when they did it in Dili during my extension period. But it’s a rule I have to follow whether I like it or not. So, on a very early Saturday, I went with the driver to Batugade and Atambua, the border between Timor Leste and Indonesia respectively. Literally, I exited Timor Leste through Batugade and entered Atambua which is the Indonesian border. These two border offices are separated by a half kilometer no man’s land. Literally, I entered Indonesia, have my passport stamped entry and moved around the immigration office and have my passport stamped exit. Then, I went back to Batugade and the TL immigration officer stamped my passport with work permit and that was it!

It took me 30 minutes to complete the process while it took us 3 hours going and 3 hours coming back to Dili. To be honest, I don’t see the logic of it. It doesn’t make any sense at all to do this if the MOFA is located in Dili. Besides, the stamp I got from my extension was even of better quality, because it was a nice sticker, than the work permit which was only a red rubber stamp and manually written with pieces of information on validity period, work permit number, etc. While I understand the fact that they don’t have laws in place yet, it makes me wonder how this giant system capacitate them because it’s supposed to be part of their mandate but on the other hand, it could also be resistance to learn and apply what is practical and feasible process on the part of the concerned ministry. It’s difficult to speculate but this is one thing I cannot understand and find any sense at all. I wonder how it would be again next year when I renew my work permit for my 2^nd year. Until then...