While tourism, travel and aviation authorities have released statements, saying they are engaging with government regarding concerns around South Africa’s new immigration regulations, the Department of Home Affairs says it has yet to receive information about how regulations will have a negative impact on travel to and from South Africa.
Home Affairs director-general Mkuseli Apleni said as much at a media briefing on the New Immigration Act in Pretoria on Thursday: “People have been raising this matter about the regulations affecting negatively (sic) tourism, but unfortunately nobody has come forward to us and said ‘regulation A is going to affect tourism in this respect’, so that as a department we would be able to respond,” he said. “It’s statements that people are making.”
The department came under fire from the inbound and outbound travel industry after it introduced new regulations as part of the Immigration Amendment Act that require parents travelling with children into and out of South Africa to produce an unabridged birth certificate for their children.
Apleni said Minister Malusi Gigaba had indicated that the laws were not cast in stone. “If people come to us with valid reasons, then we will look at these, evaluate them and then on that basis decide what we will be the way forward. But, just on the basis of a statement, it’s difficult to understand,” he said.
