Cape Town - Up to 20 passengers a day are being stopped from boarding their aircraft in Britain to travel to South Africa in the pre-Christmas holiday period because it is feared they may be breaking stringent rules regarding their children’s birth certificates.
The Independent, a major daily newspaper in Britain, on Tuesday reported that families are being turned back because of South Africa’s confusing visa rules, which require parents to produce unabridged birth certificates for children who are travelling.
Among them were a Durban couple living in England who wanted to return home to get married, but were prevented from boarding in London.
The rules were implemented after Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba incorrectly told Parliament that 30 000 children were trafficked out of South Africa annually, when in fact only 23 children had been trafficked over the past three years and all across land borders, said Southern African Tourism Services Association chief executive, David Frost.
Frost criticised the Department of Home Affairs for the regulations, saying a ministerial committee led by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate the impact of the rules had recommended that they be revoked.
“Two months ago, SAA turned away more than 1 500 passengers and there are between 10 and 20 passengers affected per flight on some flights,” he said.
However, Department of Home Affairs spokesperson, Mayihlome Tshwete, said: “David Frost does not have the responsibility of keeping South Africa and children safe. We are the first line of defence for the country.
“If he wants to change laws he should start a new political party and win the elections,” Tshwete said. He said SA was “moving toward a global standard”.
“National security can’t be designed on what people feel.”
So far the government has failed to implement a relaxation of the regulations it had promised in October, the DA’s spokesman on tourism, James Vos, said.
A Durban couple living in Britain who wanted to return to get married faced near disaster as a result of the rules.
Nadine Parent and her fiancé, Grant Hughes were not allowed to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Heathrow to Addis Ababa where they were to connect to Durban last Thursday, because Hughes’s children – Caitlin, 11, and Keagan, 15, who were with them – did not have unabridged birth certificates.
“With the rand being at its lowest point in 14 years, South Africa’s tourism industry should be thriving, but it is not because onerous visa regulations are repelling tourist interest in our country,” Vos said.
Tourism constitutes nine percent of the country’s GDP and employs 1.5 million South Africans. According to the industry, one job is created for every 12 arrivals.
Vos said he would write to Ramaphosa as the chairperson of the inter-ministerial committee on visa regulations, asking him to escalate the roll out of electronic visas as a matter of urgency.
Reports commissioned by the Tourism Business Council of South Africa predict that by the end of this year, the number of tourists lost due to the visa regulations is likely to hit 100 000, with a loss of 9 300 jobs and around R4.1-billion in revenue. Despite reports of sizeable numbers of visitors coming through Cape Town International airport since the season began, the visa regulations are still costing the city millions.
Parent said she would “kiss the ground” when she landed at King Shaka International Airport after almost having to cancel her uMhlanga beach wedding because of the visa rules. The couple, now living in Suffolk in England, said they had been unaware of the Department of Home Affairs regulations.
Hughes said the couple planned to marry in Durban because their parents were elderly and unable to travel. All the wedding arrangements were in place and everything was paid for. He simply did not know that he now also had to carry his children’s full unabridged birth certificates.
Hughes said there was no information on the airline’s website about the regulations and the travel agent, DialAFlight, had not informed him of the rule.
“The staff member (at Heathrow) informed us, quite nonchalantly, that they turn away about three families a night because of this oversight.”
Hughes said the airline offered him a rescheduled flight on business class for £8 000 (R180 000).
Speaking from Paris, en-route to Durban with the family, Parent said they considered cancelling the wedding, but a friend of Hughes had stepped in to save it.
A spokesperson for Ethiopian Airlines in Britain, Dereje Derero, said the airline was “extremely sorry about the inconvenience” but that it had “occasional problems” since the new rules were implemented on June 1.
However, he said, it was the passenger’s responsibility to obtain the necessary documents.
Karen Hart, head of legal and consumer affairs of Lotus Group, DialAFlight’s holding company, said clients were advised at the time of booking and sent a notice about the regulation via e-mail. “Refunds are being requested from the airline on behalf of the clients,” she said.
South African travel agent Lea Kotze from the Harvey World Travel agency said the new visa regulations had come as a shock to the system at first, but as the word spread and clients became better informed, it had been smooth sailing.
“After the initial panic session, our clients all jumped in and were very accommodating. We hired a company to assist our clients with preparing the relevant documentation.”
Kotze said there were whisperings of “hiccups” with clientele at other agencies, “but none so far that I have dealt with”.
Cape Argus