Processing times for converting a Work Permit to Dependent Visa

Hi

My wife came to Belgium with me as Dependent in 2019 and soon she got a Job offer. However, this company insisted to apply a Work permit for her and we agreed. In Dec'22, she was already due for her Work Permit renewal (Expiry 31 Mar'23) when she got a new job offer. This new company applied for the Work Permit and since then our problem started. The Immigration office picked her case up in Feb'23 after 2 months of application and asked for some additional documents from the new employer. They already submitted those documents and since then we have been waiting for the approval.

We are calling the Immigration office nearly every day, sending emails but we only receive this comment that they are working on it on priority and waiting for some feedback from Third Party. They don't give out any details on what this Third party is. Even the new company HR tries and doesn't get any further info. The case officer tells the HR every week that the approval will happen this week and this story is rolling on for 5 weeks now.

In the meantime, her card has expired and she is out of Job. We got this Annexure 49 until 05 May'23 from Townhall but can't work because there is no approval. Bank has already informed us that her Account would be temporarily blocked until the Card is available and also ITSME doesn't work and therefore any payment requests coming to E-Box can't be viewed anymore.

We are experiencing so much stress at this moment and we were thinking if we could apply for Dependent type again for my wife and leave this hell behind us. However we are not sure if we could do this while the Work permit application is going on. Is it a good idea ? How much time can we expect ? If her new employer would be okay ? Any problems we could face ?