With its new initiative to offer visas on arrival to African visitors,
Ethiopia hopes to spur tourism, trade and investment, as part of the
African Union’s vision of creating “seamless borders” across the
continent and achieving economic integration. (photo: Twitter,
Ethiopian Airlines).
Ethiopia has revamped and streamlined its visa system for visitors
from African nations in a move that will spur tourism, trade and
investment, and has broad implications for African unity.
As of Nov. 1, Ethiopia has implemented what is known as a
visa-on-arrival service for African travelers to the East African
nation, allowing foreign visitors to receive a visa upon arrival, and
effectively opening its doors to all people arriving from throughout
the continent.
“It is truly an honor and a special privilege to witness this
historical and truly inspirational day. Ethiopian Airlines has been
bringing Africa together and closer to the world for over seven
decades,” said Ethiopian Group CEO Tewolde Gebremariam at a ceremony
held at the African Union Commission headquarters. “Today, Ethiopian
flies to 60 African destinations and connects the continent to over 50
major international cities in five continents. Visa on arrival for
fellow African brothers and sisters and, more importantly, visa online
will greatly boost cross-border tourism, trade and investment, further
deepening African integration.”
The new Ethiopian visa announcement comes on the heels of a new e-Visa
service that was launched in June. That service, initiated by the
Ethiopian Immigration and Nationality Affairs Main Department in
collaboration with Ethiopian Airlines, allows all international
visitors to apply and pay for a tourist visa online and receive it by
email message, reducing wait times and streamlining the travel
process, and eliminating the need for travelers to go to the Ethiopian
Embassy in their home country to apply for a travel permit. The
driving force behind the revamped visa service is “a new national
initiative to transform the tourism sector” in Ethiopia, according to
a press release, as Ethiopian Airlines hopes the new visa initiative
will facilitate conference tourism and boost tourism flow. For the
airline, which is unquestionably the largest carrier in Africa, the
visa plan falls into its pan-African strategy of further connecting
and creating alliances in the African airline industry.
The recent steps taken by Ethiopia �` Africa’s second-largest country
in terms of population and the continent’s fastest growing economy �`
has taken point

to a larger trend that other African nations are
expected to follow. This as Ethiopia ultimately wants to enable the
economic integration of the continent and facilitate the AU’s
promotion of the free movement of people across Africa. Kenya, Rwanda,
and Mauritius have all eased visa restrictions in the past few years,
and Ghana has offered visas upon arrival to all African nationals,
even as some African nations have gone in the other direction.
For example, South Africa has eased restrictions on Chinese and Indian
visitors, but not on travelers from within the African continent. In
addition, Tanzania has reversed its visa-on-arrival policy for
Nigeria, Mali, and Somalia.
The AU, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa, has urged all member
nations to issue a visa-on-arrival program by 2023. The AU Agenda 2063
also calls for the issuance of an African Common Passport by 2023. In
2016, the AU announced the launch of an e-passport, which will be
initially available to African heads of state, government ministers
and permanent representatives of AU member nations. Such moves
ultimately will create “seamless borders” across the continent in a
European Union-style concept, and allow for closer steps toward
economic integration of Africa. In February 2018, the AU introduced a
Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), an effort to liberalize
civil aviation and break down barriers to trade and labor movement in
Africa, which have stifled African development over the years. SAATM
promises to increase airline connectivity across the continent and
enhance competitiveness in the African airline sector, resulting in an
expansion in tourism, trade and commerce within Africa and with the
rest of the world. The AU expects a unified airline market �` which
includes the lifting of visa restrictions and dropping tariff and
customs restraints �` will bring about 300,000 additional direct jobs
and two million indirect jobs.
Last year, the AU launched the “.africa” domain, which aspires to
unite Africa on the Internet just as the member nations seek greater
connectivity in the air and in travel, trade and investment.
With the introduction of an innovative and streamlined visa program
for its fellow African travelers, Ethiopia is setting a standard for
Africans to follow, in a pan-African vision of economic cooperation
that can only boost the continent. V.2574

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
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An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19 V.5316
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In recent years, South Africa has seen a significant influx of immigrants from various African countries, as well as other parts of the world. This has raised important questions about the country`s immigration policies and their impact on job creation for both locals and immigrants. The South African immigration system, like many other countries, is a complex and ever-evolving process that aims to balance the country`s economic needs with its social and cultural interests. Let`s take a closer look at how this system intersects with job creation in South Africa. The South African government implemented the Immigration Act of 2002, which outlines the country`s immigration policies and procedures. Under this act, foreigners are required to obtain a visa or permit to enter, work, or study in South Africa. The type of visa or permit required depends on the intended purpose of the individual`s visit and their country of origin. V.5312
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Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17 V.5313
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Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has said the public has shown great support for the final White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection which appeared in the Government Gazette on Wednesday. Briefing the media, he addressed what he saw as a long-overdue need to replace an outdated Citizenship Act, as well as enact proposed changes to existing legislation. V.5306
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