South Africa Introduces 'Special Provision' Visa for Nigerian Travellers
- To encourage business visitors to go to and from South Africa, Nigeria has implemented a five-year multiple-entry visa
- The consul general asserted that the application procedure for visas has been simpler for Nigerians after hosting an immigration forum
- He suggested that the embassy had been working on procedures to make it easier to issue visas the year before
Legit.ng journalist Zainab Iwayemi has over 3-year-experience covering the Economy, Technology, and Capital Market.
In an effort to promote travel from South Africa to Nigeria and back, the country has instituted a five-year multiple-entry visa for business travellers.
Source: Getty Images
During the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce July Breakfast Meeting 2024, which was sponsored by South African Airways, Bobby Moroe, the consul general of South Africa, revealed this to Nigerians on Thursday.
Moroe who described the visa as a ‘special provision’ for business travellers, said in a BusinessDay report.
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“We now have a five-year multiple entry visa for business people. If I was at liberty to mention people’s names, I would do that.
"This includes tourist visas. Our turnaround period has been cut short. We are now also able to invite you for a briefing if you will be travelling to South Africa in groups.
“As groups, we set up appointments on your behalf with VFS, you give us a date and submit a list, to make a request for VFS to allow you to submit with your group. Those are the interventions that we have made. This is an on-going mandate we have given to ourselves for us to be able to respond to the challenges that have been raised to us.”
Since holding an immigration forum last year and hearing from stakeholders about their visa issues, the consul general claimed that the visa application process has become easier for Nigerians.
He made a suggestion that the consulate had been developing systems to facilitate the issuance of visas for the previous year.
“Firstly, our turnaround has been cut short. In the past, people complained that we were keeping their passports for too long. Our turnaround time now is a maximum of seven to eight days.
“But you also have an option. If you’ll be travelling to the UK or any part of the world and you also want to apply for a visa, you are no longer constrained. You can use your data page, certify it, put it into the package of application, submit that application and then off you go to the UK once your visa is ready, we send you an SMS.
“You might be sitting somewhere in the U.K or Dubai and we will send you a message that your visa is ready, when you return back home, you’ll get your visa.”
He said if people are travelling to Zimbabwe and Namibia via South Africa, the Consulate can assist them with passage via South Africa.
He added,
“When it comes to South African nationals, they do not necessarily require visas to certain regions. The same way for West Africa nationals, you use your ECOWAS passport but you must be in that particular country for a period not exceeding 90 days.”
UK sets new visa rules for Nigerian students
Legit.ng reported that the UK government has banned international students undertaking undergraduate and master's studies from sponsoring dependents into the country.
Richard Montgomery, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, revealed that from now on, only those pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree would be eligible to sponsor dependents.
Speaking to journalists, he said the decision is part of the UK government's recent changes in visa policies to reduce migration numbers.
Proofread by Kola Muhammed, journalist and copyeditor at Legit.ng
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