On Wednesday, October 31, the opposition in Parliament grilled the Minister of Tourism over government’s failure to amend regulations relating to foreign minors travelling to South Africa.
South African Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, has yet to formally make the changes the Cabinet undertook to gazette last month.
Willem Faber, the Northern Cape's Democratic Alliance (DA) representative, and Member of Parliament, challenged Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom, who had issued a ">">;">supporting statement to Gigaba’s public announcement on the gazetting, in a plenary sitting of the National Council of Provinces.
Willem requested an explanation as to why the gazetting had not been actioned by Malusi. Derek responded that the Minister of Home Affairs would be in the best position to provide the details with regard to matters of immigration regulations.
He added, however, that he and the Minister had discussed the proposed changes:
"What is now proposed is based on the approaches the USA, Canada and the UK take to minors travelling unaccompanied, or in the presence of one parent. The Immigration Advisory Board will meet on November 2 to process the proposed amendments. We believe that the approach taken has struck the necessary balance between economic development, and growth and the security interests of our country."
He added that the regulations as gazetted in 2014 would only be scrapped once new regulations were gazetted. "Although this is not the domain of the Department of Tourism, I am confident that the revised regulations will be gazette shortly after the Immigration Advisory Board meeting next week.”
Derek said that in the process of moving forward with amending the UBC regulations, a balance needed to be struck between “reasonable measures to try to combat child trafficking" and growth of the travel and tourism industry.
