The Department of Home Affairs minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has clarified allegations that his department is "chasing away tourists from South Africa". This comes after an internal circular, which was directed to the Border Management Authority (BMA) officials on 21 December 2023, was leaked.
LEAKED DIRECTIVE MISUNDERSTOOD
Motsoaledi said during a press briefing yesterday in Pretoria that the circular was misunderstood. The document titled: "Concession: extension of temporary concession in respect of foreign nationals in light of a continued backlog in processing outcomes on waiver applications, visa applications and appeal applications", ordered that tourists who desired to extend their stay in the country should leave SA by the end of February if their outcomes were not received by 23 February 2024. "I wish to emphasise that this circular was an internal communications document. It was targeted for Home Affairs and Border Management Authority (BMA) officials, who I have mentioned. Rather than guide anybody, unfortunately this document raised a storm in the media and within establishments that have to do with tourism," he said. The Minister said his department was accused of 'chasing away tourists from the country', and in the process weakening and even risking the collapse the tourism industry in the country. "One specific group of tourists mentioned in this regard are called ?swallows'. These are people who move between the northern and the southern hemisphere in search of sunny days and they are regarded as very important to the tourism industry," he said.
THEY WON'T GAIN ANYTHING FROM SABOTAGING TOURISM
Motsoaledi said that his department will gain nothing by destroying the tourism industry which is regarded as one of the pillars of the economy, not only in South Africa but in many other countries.
"I wish to state categorically that the Department of Home Affairs would gain nothing by destroying the tourism industry, which is regarded as one of the pillars of the economy, not only in South Africa but in many other countries," he said. He added, "I did concede that this was a very unfortunate circular which should not have been issued because matters it was trying to clarify could have easily been addressed in the normal course of operations between the Border Management Authority and the department. We arrived at the condition that if indeed the circular had an effect to chase tourists out of the country, we needed to find a way to resolve that, hence we needed to check at the borders if there was a significant spike of people who had visited South Africa as tourists and are leaving. If there was such a spike, we wanted to act in mitigation," he said, adding that his department continues to work closely with the tourism industry.
UNDESIRABLE
Motsoaledi further said that in all the ports of entry in and out of South Africa, they have an electronic movement control system (MCS) where upon entry into the country, the MCS electronically records the date and time of entry. "As you would know, your passports and visas indicate the number of days you have been allocated to be in South Africa. If you exceed your allocated days, even by just one day, the MCS at the borders will pick it up, regard it as an overstay, and automatically declare you undesirable. Fortunately, lawmakers in this country also realised that there could be myriad reasons that may cause a person to exceed their allocated days. Hence in the Act, the legislature empowers the Minister to review and set aside an undesirability status on application by the affected individual if cogent reasons are provided," he said.
ZIM NW CFO TO BE INVESTIGATED BY SIU
Meanwhile, Motsoaledi also revealed that a Chief Financial Officer of a North West government entity, who accused the home affairs department of not responding to his court papers, is using fraudulent documentation to be in South Africa. He said Kudakwashe Mpofu, the suspended CFO of North West Development Corporation, was informed in June 2023 that his permit was illegal. "I'm here today to confirm that according to our records, Mr Kudakwashe Mpofu's permanent residence document is fraudulent and was not issued by the department of Home Affairs and we do not know where he obtained it from. The permanent residence permit number appearing on Mr Mpofu's document does not exist in our systems. We can further confirm that the control number appearing on Mr Mpofu's purported document was not issued by the department to him but rather it was legitimately issued to somebody else. As to how Mr Mpofu came across that control number, we do not know," Motsoaledi said. The Minister also confirmed that they have opened a criminal case at the Pretoria Central Police station against Mpofu and that the case has been referred to the Special Investigating Unit (SUI) for further investigations.