Andrew Stegmann

Travellers hit by major delays at OR Tambo

Both outbound and inbound travellers are experiencing significant delays at OR Tambo International Airport.

Immigration officials have begun capturing biometrics at the airport, taking them significantly longer to process passport holders.

Chris Zweigenthal, CEO of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA), says delays are currently taking up to two hours.

“Delays have a knock-on effect, travellers miss their connections and the cost falls to the airlines,” comments June Crawford, CEO of the Board of Airline Representatives of South Africa (BARSA).

It is unclear how long these delays will last. The entire aviation community is aware of it and we are finding ways of processing people more quickly and minimising delays, says Zweigenthal.

Source

Andrew Stegmann

Kinshasa Is Most Expensive City To Live For Expats

Expat workers in some exotic locations have found to their surprise they are living in some of the most expensive cities in the world, according to a new survey.

Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ranked as the costliest city in the world ahead of close to 200 global locations.

Once famous for Muhammed Ali’s classic rumble in the jungle against heavyweight rival George Foreman, now the city is known for all the wrong reasons.

Expat benefit firm ECA International says the country’s badly performing currency – the Congolese franc – and a fall in demand for mined raw materials such as copper and cobalt have all contributed to the city’s high cost of living.

The survey compares the local cost of a basket of everyday goods and services in each city.

Corruption, bribes and crime

“The items that expats on assignment want to buy are expensive in Kinshasa because of several reasons,” said an ECA International spokesman.

Source

Andrew Stegmann

Zimbabwe says foreigners can repatriate profits despite dollar shortage

HARARE – Foreign investors in Zimbabwe will receive priority to repatriate all their profits and dividends despite a shortage of dollars that has forced the country to limit foreign payments and imports, a central bank official said on Thursday.

Farai Masendu, RBZ deputy director in the exchange control department told an investment conference in Harare that foreign investors, including those on the stock and money markets, would be able to freely send their money abroad.

“Where an investor has declared a dividend and you have a profit remittance that you want to make, in terms of our foreign payments, that receives priority,” Masendu said.

“You are able to remit 100 percent of your profits and dividends.”

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) on May 4 set priorities for imports and imposed limits on cash withdrawals in an effort to ease an acute shortage of money.

Zimbabwe has since March faced shortages of US dollars, which it adopted, along with other currencies like the rand and euro in January 2009, replacing its own currency that was ravaged by hyper-inflation, which reached 500 billion percent.

Some mining companies and manufacturers have said the shortages of money has seen banks delaying payments for their inputs abroad, which could affect production.

The central bank earlier this month set up a foreign currency allocation team to decide on which imports and foreign payments receive priority.

Source

Andrew Stegmann

Court setback for immigrants: Cape Town refugee office may stay closed

On 24 June, the Cape Town High Court upheld a decision to keep the Cape Town Refugee Reception Office (CTRRO) closed. The Scalabrini Centre and Others had challenged the Director General of Home Affairs’ decision to keep the office closed after being ordered to re-examine the decision and to do further research.

The Director General claims it is too difficult to procure sustainable space for the CTRRO. In all of its three former locations, neighbouring residents and businesses have complained that the high numbers of refugees make the office a public nuisance. The CTRRO has been ordered to vacate two of its three former premises.

The Scalabrini Centre argued that the difficulties in finding a location were to be expected, and it did not change the fact that Refugee Reception Offices (RROs) are necessary to protect the constitutional rights of asylum seekers. However, the judge upheld the claim that the difficulty in finding a location justified closing the office down, in spite of the burden placed on asylum seekers.

Source