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New visa regulations must be repealed - Maimane

Source: Genevieve Quintal, News24, 12/08/2015

Johannesburg - President Jacob Zuma needs to show leadership and
repeal the new visa regulations, DA leader Mmusi Maimane said on
Wednesday.

Appointing an inter-ministerial task team is not the right approach,
he told News24 at the South West Gauteng College in Roodepoort, where
he was outlining the DA's plan to deal with the economic crisis.
"It is a permanent approach by the ANC that when there is a problem,
we must have another inter-ministerial committee.

"They take too long and then once they put [in] their recommendations,
those have to work through the system. This... requires strong
leadership and I think the president has failed," Maimane said.

Zuma announced on Tuesday that the committee, chaired by Deputy
President Cyril Ramaphosa, will review the "unintended consequences"
of the new immigration regulations on various sectors, including
tourism and investment.

Regulations implemented last year require visitors to provide
biometric data when they apply for visas. This is a particular problem
for people in large countries, such as China, where there are South
African consulates only in Beijing and Shanghai.

Unabridged birth certificates
Further rules implemented in June require parents to carry unabridged
birth certificates for their children when travelling to South Africa,
a move heavily criticised by the tourism industry and foreign
governments.

Maimane said government is using spurious numbers to justify the need
for the new regulations.
"Tourism was not broken. Why did the ANC government have to go and
tinker with it from a policy point of view?
"They are arguing that there are thousands of cases of child
trafficking when there is no evidence to back this up."

He said, if anything, a task team should have been set up to focus on
dealing with threats of terror, as well as how people enter and exit
the country.

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