New visa blow for SA

07 October 2016 - 09:00 By Shelley Seid

South Africans can't be trusted - that's why New Zealand has had to introduce visas for visitors who hold South African passports. It was once one of the few countries South Africans could visit without a painful, pricey visa process. Now a visa costing R1600 will be required from November 21.In the first five months of this year, the number of South Africans refused permission to board New Zealand flights or entry on arrival was 38% higher than in the same period in 2015, says Immigration New Zealand general manager Peter Elms, from 140 to 193."The majority of attempts involved what are likely to be fraudulently obtained genuine South African passports," he said."Imposters and altered passports were also encountered."Elms said that from July 1 2015 to June 30 this year 4300 people were not allowed to board flights to New Zealand or refused entry on arrival compared with 3 625 people during the previous financial year.Of these, the majority were Chinese (455) and the second-biggest group were South Africans (371). Indian passport holders took third place at 221.South Africa is not alone in this. In the past 20 years, seven countries had their New Zealand visa waiver status suspended: Indonesia, Thailand, Zimbabwe, Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu and the Czech Republic. The Czech visa waiver status has since been reinstated.Chris Watters, a Johannesburg attorney specialising in immigration and refugee law, said the change was inevitable. "New Zealand was the only one of the so-called Five Eyes that had not imposed visa restrictions on South Africans." Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand."Do these numbers really make a big difference to NZ Immigration? It is an increase of 53 people spread over a year, really. And without wishing to sound like an apologist for the Department of Home Affairs, in recent years it has tightened up on how people qualify for South African citizenship, how they vet applications and how they print and issue passports."Passports being complained of could be old passports issued prior to the upgraded checks being imposed. These old passports all expire in 10 years as a maximum, so these would stop appearing soon enough. While no system is infallible anywhere, I think there is more to this than just one errant South African a week going to New Zealand with a bad passport."Home Affairs spokesman Thabo Mokgola said: "We will continue to engage with the New Zealand government to arrive at a common understanding on the matter. To this end, we find it unfortunate, given the vast improvements to our systems over the years."..

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