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SA IN TALKS TO BRING BACK
VISA-FREE UK TRAVEL SA govt to negotiate UK visitor visa conditions: stringent security measures and international best practice now make our passports among ‘world’s safest’ by STAFF REPORTER
SHOULD all go according to plan, South Africans may once again be able to visit the UK without requiring visas. The South African government says it is sufficiently confident of the security of its passport system that it has approached British authorities to negotiate the possible reinstatement of South Africa’s visa-free status. The UK revoked this status in 2008 after rampant corruption in the Department of Home Affairs saw officials issue passports to criminals and asylum seekers, increasing the risk of suspected terrorists entering the UK via South Africa. After a British court heard that at least 6,000 illegal Asian immigrants had been smuggled into the UK on South African passports, SA shot to the top of the British government’s visa ‘hit list’. Immigration experts said at the time that the ‘Green Mamba’ was “no longer worth the paper it’s written on”. This change has affected thousands of South Africans, who for the last five years have had to pay for costly visas to come on business trips, holidays or to visit family here. However, Home Affairs directorgeneral Mkuseli Apleni said on Friday that the Cabinet had decided to renegotiate visa conditions for South African travelling to the UK after expressing satisfaction that the Department of Home Affairs had taken “drastic steps” over the last five years to root out corruption,
UK Immigration • UK Visas • Permits • EEA visas • Residency • Citizenship • Appeals • Sponsorship Licences South African Immigration
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Oscar Pistorius out on R1m bail until 4 June trial | p2
After several days in court and many new revelations in the murder case against Oscar Pistorius, the magistrate decided to release
A Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World - An interview with Johnny SUGAR MAN WINS OSCAR: ‘Searching for Sugar Man’, which tells the story of American folk singer Rodriguez who was massive in South Africa but practically unheard of in the rest of the world, won best documentary at the 85th Academy Awards on Sunday night. Rodriguez, pictured performing at the Roundhouse last year, has just finished a nine-date concert tour in South Africa. Photo by Christine van der Merwe.
clean up the national population register and redesign the security features of passports. “We now have one to the world’s safest passports that cannot be forged. The process of issuing passports is more credible and has stringent checks and balances to ensure applicants are genuinely South African,” Apleni told Business Day. He said South Africa had followed best international practice
to monitor travellers’ movements at all its entry and exit points. At OR Tambo International Airport the fingerprints of every traveller using a South African passport are checked against the national population register to ensure that the passport holder is in fact a South African citizen. The measure has led to the arrest and detention of a number of people with fraudulently acquired South
African passports. Apleni said this had eliminated the problem of people leaving South African shores as South Africans and landing in Europe with a different identity, which posed “a serious challenge for immigration officials there and compromised South Africa. “We also check that passengers’ names and passports correspond so that we are sure of visitors’ identity and the purpose of their visit.
On 27 March Johnny will become the first ever solo South African act to perform at the Royal
SA Power 100: Jonny Steinberg | p11 The South African author and lecturer in African Studies at Oxford University will be speaking at the SA Chamber of Commerce 1st Wednesday
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