Tag Archive for: Aaron Motsoaledi

Andrew Stegmann

Opinion: South Africa Needs More Visa-free Agreements if it Wants to Stop Losing ‘Passport Power’

Although the South African passport has lost 10 positions over the last decade on the latest Henley Passport Index, the country could play catch-up if a concerted effort is made to secure mutual visa waivers with so-called “high quality nations”.

This is the view of Amanda Smit, managing partner and head of South, Central and East Africa at the UK-based global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners.

South Africa ranks 56th on the latest index, which ranks passports in the world according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa. It is based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The UAE, for example, managed to increase its passport’s position on the index by 47 places over the last 10 years to 18th place, Smit told Fin24 on Wednesday.

Looking specifically at the BRICS countries, of which SA forms part, Smit said that, while Brazil and China improved their positions on the index over the past 10 years by nine and sixteen places respectively, India and Russia have also seen the power of their passports decline during that time, dropping by seven and two places respectively.

Smit says one might think the SA passport’s visa free or visa on arrival access to 100 destinations is a lot, but compare that to the Japanese passport (ranked in first place on the index) which offers 191 visa-free destinations.

On top of that, none of the 100 visa free destinations for an SA passport are in what Smit describes as the “most popular” destinations. In her view, that makes it more difficult to be “mobile” for business or leisure purposes.

She also argues that, while other African countries’ passports mainly remained static on the index, the SA passport lost ground.

Among African countries, the Seychelles remains the regional lead, ranking 29th globally with a visa-free or visa-on-arrival score of 151, while Mauritius retains second place with a visa-free or visa-on-arrival score of 146.

“My advice is that, if SA wants to improve the strength of our passport, we must be more proactive to obtain mutual visa agreements with other countries – preferably ‘high quality’ nations,” Smit says.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

Home Affairs’s Recent Beitbridge Border Crossing Problems

Nearly 60 000 people crossed the Beitbridge border post in a 24-hour period earlier this month.

This is according to the Department of Home Affairs after complaints of long waiting periods, chaotic queues and under-staffing at the border post.

Thousands of people travelling back into South Africa had arrived at the border late evening on January 3 and were only assisted the next day.

Scores of people sat in long snaking queues waiting to be served by South African immigration officials. Others sat around the immigration area with their belongings and slept there the night.

GroundUp spoke to people who had waited several hours to be seen by an immigration officer.

One woman who had arrived at 23:00 said her brother was waiting for her on the other side of the border to drive her back to Johannesburg. She was only assisted after 09:00.

Another Zimbabwean woman said she had left her baby with her husband. She went to buy goods and did not expect that it would take that long when returning. It is unclear when she was assisted.

Scorching temperatures

When GroundUp arrived, only one immigration officer was processing and assisting people. During previous visits, five immigration officers were there to serve people travelling into the country. More staff only arrived at 07:00 January 4.

By then, travelers were exhausted and had begun shoving and pushing to get to the front to be served. One staff member tried to keep people calm but they did not listen.

After about 30 minutes of chaos, several police officers arrived. They ordered the group to stand in three lines.

People endured scorching temperatures and were only served by midday on January 4.

Siya Qoza, spokesperson for the Minister of Home Affairs, said 51 immigration officers were meant to be on duty at all times. He said 29 832 people had crossed the border on 3 January. The next day, 53 immigration officers were on duty and 30 137 people crossed into the country, he said.

When asked why more staff were not sent to assist during one of the busiest periods, Qoza said he could not respond to this.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

South Africa’s e-Visa Pilot Is Live

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has started with the testing and piloting of the electronic visa application system, the e-Visa.

The DHA revealed their plans at a briefing recently.

This follows President Cyril Ramaphosa’s promise at this year’s Africa Travel Indaba in Durban, to introduce a world-class e-visa system and reduce the red tape that travellers face when visiting the country.

Ramaphosa said at the time: “We must reduce the onerous and often unnecessary bureaucratic red tape that tourists who want to visit our countries face. This requires us to streamline our tourist visa regimes.

“As South Africa, we are committed to working towards the African Union’s goal of visa-free travel and a single African air transport market. We are in the process of radically overhauling our visa dispensation for the rest of the world and introducing a world-class e-visa system. The challenges are going to be ironed out,” he said.

DHA revealed in a statement that the decision to introduce the e-Visa provided many benefits. “It is reliable, client-friendly and convenient for visa applicants, airlines, trade partners and Home Affairs officials.

“Once fully rolled-out, prospective visitors will apply online for visas, at home, office or place of work. It will lessen administrative burdens, including those involved in receiving applicants at visa offices, printing visa stickers and returning passports to applicants.”

It also revealed that the department was testing the new system with Kenya.

“As part of the pilot, a team of DHA immigration and IT officials visited Kenya. This team is scheduled to return to Kenya next week, on December 9, 2019. The first Kenyan tourist who applied for the visitors’ visa on the new e-Visa system arrived yesterday (Saturday) afternoon and more are expected this week as part of the pilot.

“We are continuously monitoring this pilot process to ensure that user experience is not compromised,” the statement revealed.

China, India and Nigeria will be included to the pilot early next year, which will run until March 2020.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: PretoriaTravel [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

South Africa’s New e-Visa System

South Africa will pilot its new e-visa system in the coming weeks as it aims to attract investors and people with skills that are critical to building the economy.

Speaking to BusinessTech recently, Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Siya Qoza said that the pilot will be relatively limited to begin with as it aims to test the resilience of the system.

“The pilot will be conducted with Kenya first at the OR Tambo and Lanseria airports,” he said. “At the end of the month, we will evaluate the project and look at which other countries to expand the e-visa system to.”

Qoza added that the system is quick and has been designed to be as user-friendly as possible.

He estimated that the entire application process would take around 20 minutes, provided the applicant has all of the necessary supporting documents ready for submission.

Should one of the required documents be missing, applicants can resume the process exactly where they left off at a later date, he said.

Other changes

Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi said that his department is also lowering turnaround times for critical work skills visas, which are now issued within four weeks in 88.5% of applications.

By comparison, business and general work visas are issued within eight weeks in 98% of applications, he said.

“The department has also located visa services within the offices of various investment facilitation agencies around the country.

“In addition, visa requirements have been simplified for countries such as China and India, which are key markets for tourism to South Africa,” he said.

South Africa recently waived visas for travelers from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, New Zealand, Cuba, Ghana and Sao Tome and Principe.

While countries such as Qatar and Ghana already have visa-free or visa on arrival agreements with South Africa, it would be considered a serious boon if South Africans could travel visa-free to countries such as the UAE and New Zealand.

Home Affairs said it was currently in talks with these countries on two main issues.

“We have entered negotiations with these countries with the first priority being an implementation date for visa-free access to South Africa,” it said.

“Once this has been confirmed, our second priority is reciprocity.”

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].