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Mailbox: Gigaba’s visa sabotage lives on – Easter heartache

The visa changes put in place by Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba were apparently rescinded, or that’s what the communication has been. But the mailbox below tells us otherwise. The visa restrictions put in place apparently cost the country R7.5 billion annually. And one was hoping sense had prevailed, apparently not. Accountability is a term that seems to fall far from the ANC tree. – Stuart Lowman

From Biznews community member Michael McWilliams*

The Sabotage Continues.

We were told in October that the new visa regulations that had crippled the tourist industry had been rescinded and that things were back to normal. This is another untruth perpetrated by the arch-saboteur alleged Minister Malusi Gigaba of Home Affairs.

A British family intending to visit SA were stopped on Easter Saturday by their airline (Virgin) from boarding because the parents had not brought an unabridged birth certificate for their 14 year old son who was accompanying them.

Since when has anyone in the ANC ever been worried about the wellbeing of children, never mind those from European countries?

Gigaba has constructed this lie in order to sabotage the economy of the Western Cape. Statistics show him that children accompanying parents are most likely to be visiting the Cape, and horror of horror, contribute to that province’s coffers with their now very valuable foreign exchange. The Visa regulations are a transparent attempt to sabotage this inflow of money to the hated DA-run Cape. The ANC dog in the manger attitude beggars the country, but as far as the politicians are concerned, they seem to prefer to that a  non-ANC controlled province suffer rather than live up to its potential.

Read also: Maynard: Stats show how Visa blunder cost SA – and the sensational rebound

Gigaba is of course another apparatchik putting the party before the country, just as they put the cart before the horse in just about everything they attempt.

The destructive power of the ANC is awesome. What is not destroyed due to incompetence and corruption is obliterated by design. It is difficult to tell whether this is all part of the New Democratic Revolution or simply an inescapable quality of the nature of the beast. It will be academically interesting to see whether they attack the job of re-building after the revolution as avidly as they have taken to the destruction of the rich legacy left by the last regime.

If their meagre trail of RDP houses scarring the veldscape are anything to go by, they have an awful lot to learn about building things. Perhaps they will relax the visa regulations to allow the emergency aid people in?

*Michael McWilliams is Author of Battle for Cassinga and Osama’s Angel.

* For more in-depth business news, visit biznews.com or simply sign up for the daily newsletter.


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