Andrew Stegmann

Botswana allows visa on arrival for Emiratis

Abu Dhabi: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation announced on Wednesday that UAE citizens can travel to Botswana without prior entry visa, and can stay for a period not exceeding 90 days.

Ahmad Saeed Elham Al Daheri, Assistant Undersecretary for Consular Affairs, said the ministry received an official memorandum from the Government of Botswana stating that the latter signed a decision exempting citizens of the UAE from prior entry visa requirements.

Al Daheri said that this decision shows the depth of relations between the UAE and Botswana in the light of the development of bilateral cooperation on one hand, and the UAE’s international status on the other.

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Andrew Stegmann

20 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO TO LUANDA

Don’t count on English. Forget Lisbon or Brasilia: with a population of more than six million, Luanda is the world’s most populous Portuguese-speaking capital city. (The population swelled during Angola’s 27-year civil war, when millions of refugees moved to the relative safety of the city.) English is not widely spoken, even in Luanda. Just a few basic words in Portuguese will take you far: Obrigado (thank you), bom dia (good morning), por favor (please), sim (yes), não (no), and bué (a lot). The expression fixe (“feesh”), meaning okay or cool, is also deeply useful.

Get your papers in order. Angola’s visa process is a bureaucrat’s dream: slow, confusing, and arcane. From 1975 until 1991 Angola was a socialist, one-party state closely aligned with Russia and Cuba. In a hangover from its Cold War mentality, Angola still treats foreigners with suspicion, and it will seem like some embassy officials take pride in complicating things for would-be tourists. Factor in at least one month to sort out visa matters. Different consulate officials will tell you different things about which documents you need to bring—and you will need a letter of invitation from an Angolan citizen or a company.

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Andrew Stegmann

Rand Gains Offer South Africa’s Kganyago ‘Cushion’ on Rates

The recent strength of South Africa’s rand is providing a cushion for the country’s policy makers and shouldn’t lead to complacency in tackling inflation, Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago said.

“The risks to the inflation outlook has to do with possible future weakness in the currency,” Kganyago told reporters at a central bank event in Pretoria on Thursday. “The fact that the currency has strengthened has not taken that way, it has just provided us with a cushion over a period of time, we do not know for how long.”

Slower inflation may give the central bank the opportunity to halt an interest-rate increase cycle and support an economy that it estimates won’t expand this year. Policy makers have been caught in a dilemma of weak growth and inflation outside its 3 percent to 6 percent target. The rand has appreciated 15 percent against the dollar in 2016 and more than 12 percent versus the euro.

 While the monetary policy committee can’t respond to short-term currency moves, the central bank is “cautiously optimistic” about its effect on inflation, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Daniel Mminele said.

“It’s a function of how sustained” the rand’s gains would be, Mminele said. ”This may well just be a period of correction.”

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Andrew Stegmann

Zim man who tweeted home affairs minister gets visa at 11th hour

Durban – The thought of kissing his wife and two children goodbye as the expiry date of his temporary spousal visa drew nearer had been replaying in Forbes Maupa’s mind over and over.

Maupa, a priest at Pinetown’s Anglican Church of St John the Baptist, has been struggling to fall asleep thinking about Saturday, August 20, the day he would have to turn his back and bid farewell to South Africa, a place he has called home since arriving from Zimbabwe in 2001.

Desperate and out of options after being given the runaround by the Department of Home Affairs for almost four years on his application for permanent residency, in 2015 Maupa sent Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba a tweet stating his case, hoping that Gigaba would be able to expedite the matter.

However, Maupa struggled to secure his permit despite the minister pointing him in the right direction and assigning an official to deal with the case.

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