New visa regulations must be repealed, says Maimane
President Jacob Zuma needs to show leadership and repeal the new visa regulations, DA leader Mmusi Maimane said on Wednesday.
Appointing an inter-ministerial task team is not the right approach, he told News24 at the South West Gauteng College in Roodepoort, where he was outlining the DA's plan to deal with the economic crisis.
"It is a permanent approach by the ANC that when there is a problem, we must have another inter-ministerial committee.
"They take too long and then once they put [in] their recommendations, those have to work through the system. This... requires strong leadership and I think the president has failed," Maimane said.
Zuma announced on Tuesday that the committee, chaired by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, will review the "unintended consequences" of the new immigration regulations on various sectors, including tourism and investment.
Regulations implemented last year require visitors to provide biometric data when they apply for visas. This is a particular problem for people in large countries, such as China, where there are South African consulates only in Beijing and Shanghai.
Unabridged birth certificates
Further rules implemented in June require parents to carry unabridged birth certificates for their children when travelling to South Africa, a move heavily criticised by the tourism industry and foreign governments.
Maimane said government is using spurious numbers to justify the need for the new regulations.
"Tourism was not broken. Why did the ANC government have to go and tinker with it from a policy point of view?
"They are arguing that there are thousands of cases of child trafficking when there is no evidence to back this up."
He said, if anything, a task team should have been set up to focus on dealing with threats of terror, as well as how people enter and exit the country.
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