By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Authorities in South Africa have announced the approval of a ten-year visa for Nigerian businessmen and women with a condition that applicants must provide evidence that they are legitimate business people before application could be processed.
South Africa’s Consul-General, Bobby Moroe, who announced this during the South Africa-Nigeria Trade and Investment Roundtable in Lagos said other category of visa applicants could get three, four, five years and more.
“If they qualify, they will get 10-years’ visa or they get seven depending on the nature or the credibility of their application, but there are people who are going to get 10-years’ visa. They are people who have been to South Africa quite a number of times, who also help small investments in South Africa in the business sector, in the film industry, in the academic sector and so on.
“So, we help quite a number of them who have shown interest and it’s in our best interest that we facilitate that to the fullest because it also benefits our own country South Africa, besides benefiting the relations of the two countries,” Moroe stated.
According to him, all the criteria are listed in the Victor France Shanghai (VFS) website urging those who are interested to look at all the requirements however they must also classify their applications.
“So when somebody gets a six months visa, it means the credibility of the information that he has given qualifies him/her for a six months visa, so a decision that the immigration officer takes is based on the credibility of the application itself, it’s not arbitrary, the immigration officer is guided by the application to determine how many years the applicant must get,” he said.
The Consul-General assured that whoever qualified will get the visa adding it’s the normal process.
The only difference is that now the number of years of validity of the business has been increased in order to make doing business easy for the two countries and it’s the first of its kind, he noted.
On trade volume between Nigeria and South Africa, he said the volume is in favour of Nigeria due to her population. He noted that South Africa has a population of about 60million people while Nigeria is over 200million people.
According to him, Nigeria exports to South Africa more than South Africa exports to Nigeria.
What South Africa exports to Nigeria are fruits, vegetables, apples, pears and so on. While from Nigeria, South Africa receives rubber, petroleum among others, he noted.
