South Africa to introduce e-visa

Thursday, October 10, 2019

South Africa will soon introduce e-visa to boost the inbound tourism industry. The CEO of the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association, David Frost, has confirmed this development. He said that the imminent introduction would be huge news for the inbound tourism industry. According to Frost, the decision would remove a massive tourism obstacle.

The Department of Home Affairs announced that it would soon come up with e-visa pilot scheme in November. The announcement was made on October 7.

The introduction of e-visas will be good news for the travellers. The travellers can access their documents online through this system. This will eliminate the need for visiting South African missions abroad.

The Director-General in the Presidency, Busani Ngcaweni has supported the notion of Frost saying that the new system was part of the government’s efforts to reduce bureaucratic red tape. “We want to make it easier for tourists to travel. The tourist visa regimes will be simplified even more,” he said.

The South African government has fixed the target upon 21 million tourist visitations by 2030.

Recently, Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, addressed the presidential working committee on the job summit in relation to e-visas in which he talked about several strides that have been made toward simplifying the visa system. That the department has lowered turnaround times for critical work skills visas, which are now issued within four weeks, he said. He further mentioned that business and general work visas were being issued within eight weeks.

The government has located visa services within the offices of various investment facilitation agencies around the country, another step to make the process simpler. In another move, visa requirements have been simplified for countries like China and India. The government has also waived visas for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Cuba, New Zealand, Ghana and Principe.

The Department of Home Affairs is constantly reviewing its operations to ensure that entry requirements have been relaxed without compromising responsibility towards the safety and security of the citizens.

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