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Home Affairs looks to boost tourism by easing up visa requirements

Source: The South African, 04/05/2018

The Department of Home Affairs is working hand in hand with Tourism, in
an effort to boost the number of tourists coming to South Africa.
The controversial regulations around travelling with minors have also
been addressed.
The two departments aim to achieve this by setting up a team of
officials that will work to ease visa requirements for visitors.
This announcement was made by Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba,
alongside his counterpart at Tourism, Derek Hanekom on Wednesday.
â€œWe have, therefore, agreed that we are going to establish a joint
working team, composed of respective deputy directors general that are
going to meet regularly and facilitate regular feedback to both of us
jointly so that we can review the progress being made in this regard
and take whatever executive decisions are required,â€ Gigaba said.
The talks between the two ministers also covered the controversial
policy surrounding travelling of minors.
During his first stint as Minister of Home Affairs, Gigaba introduced
regulations which required that children travelling alone or with a
single parent present unabridged birth certificate or consent letters
from both parents. This was implemented in 2015, and resulted in
tourist numbers dipping.
According to Hanekom, this has been addressed and an announcement is
set to be made in coming weeks.
â€œWe are very close to an agreement on that, there are one or two things
that have to be finalised and then we can make an announcement in this
regard,â€ he said.
Gigaba also added that the two departments are looking to make
travelling with minors easier.
â€œWeâ€™ve tasked our respective teams to look at additional measures that
are going to make it easy for people to travel with minor children
without compromising the security of children,â€ he said.
Home Affairs is also working towards the introduction of electronic
visas.

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