E-visas on the cards
ELECTRONIC visas are on the cards for South Africa as part of the R500 billion public and private partnership initiatives unveiled by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his State of the Nation Address last month.
The introduction of e-visas is aimed at massively increasing the traffic of tourists to the country to boost the economy and reduce unemployment and inequality.
Yesterday, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma – Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation – revealed 24 sectors were participating in the Public Private Growth Initiative (PPGI) including the automotive industries, tourism and agriculture.
“Through this initiative, we want to ensure that all the plans take into consideration growth, employment, skills, investment and transformation.”
But the business sector told Dlamini Zuma that their joint initiatives would only succeed if energy supply in South Africa was uninterrupted. Dlamini Zuma agreed and said Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan was dealing with their concerns.
The PPGI group also revealed that they want to establish an Agricultural Development Agency to assist in developing more black commercial farmers in the country.
Former government minister Roelf Meyer, one of the PPGI co-ordinators, said details of their plans would be tabled to the new government after the May 8 national elections.