Tourism Minister puts visas back on the agenda

Source: Tourism Update, 21/03/2018

Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom is to meet with Home Affairs Minister
Malusi Gigaba to put South Africa’s unresolved problematic visa
regime back on the national agenda.
Speaking at a Wesgro briefing in Cape Town today (Tuesday), he said
dealing with the visa issues would be top priority in coming months.
He already had a date for “a robust engagement” with Home Affairs and
he was “quite hopeful that we will be able to address some of the
visa issues”. “We think the situation has changed, because we have a
President who really sees the importance of tourism and who is going
to be supportive.” He also suggested that Minister Gigaba might have
gained a different perspective during his tenure as Finance
Minister. “While being the Minister of Finance, he was able to look
at the economy very seriously, knowing very well that unless we do
all sorts of smart things, we are not going to get economic growth.
So I think things have changed somewhat. He has already indicated a
real interest in expanding online visa obligations and also (to
increase) more visas on arrivals. So that will all form part of the
discussions.”
Minister Hanekom criticised as “national stupidity”
and “retrogressive” the Department of Home Affairs’ decision in
December 2016 to impose reciprocal visas on New Zealand visitors.
This was done during Minister Gigaba’s first tenure as Minister of
Home Affairs. It was in response to New Zealand’s announcement in
October 2016 to impose visas on South Africans travelling to that
country. “The notion of reciprocal visa requirements is unwise to say
the least. It’s not very smart to retaliate.” He cited as an example
that Russian arrivals to South Africa had increased by more than 50%
last year after Russia was granted a visa waiver to South Africa,
whereas arrivals from New Zealand declined by 17% during the same
time “for no other reason than the visa requirement”.
Minister Hanekom said he would also again table South Africa’s
requirement for unabridged birth certificates, which he said,
was “costing South Africa heavily”. “Even the little bit of advance
that we have made in China and India by not requiring people to go in
person to collect their visas, is not enough. We need to do a lot
more. It is still too difficult to get visas for South Africa. We
also need to pay attention to the three-month limitation on visas and
we need to pay attention to the long (immigration) queues at
airports.” He said addressing all these issues would make a huge
difference in bringing more tourism to the country.
In alignment with this, the Department of Home Affairs talks to
Shadow Minister of Tourism, James Vos, on the roll-out of eVisas,
stating that Phase 1 will be commencing in Q4 this year.