Seeing red over a UK travel list that SA does not deserve to be on

The decision by the UK government to keep SA on its Covid-19 travel red list has elicited justified outrage in SA. It does indeed, in the words of minister of international relations & co-operation Naledi Pandor, boggle the mind. It has caused puzzlement not just in SA but among fair-minded sections of the British public. Much of the anger and consternation can be attributed to the opaque, almost secretive way the UK has communicated its reason, or reasons, for keeping SA on its red list — which means even vaccinated travellers who have visited SA face inconvenient and expensive quarantine. This serves as a disincentive for British tourists, who account for a significant portion of our foreign tourism numbers and revenue.

In making decisions about public health matters, particularly Covid at this time, the UK authorities would have been expected to be guided by scientific evidence. From what’s in the public domain, it would seem the UK may very well be labouring under the wrong impression about the Covid state of affairs in SA.

Responding to questions raised about its government’s decision, the British high commission in SA alluded to concerns “about the continued presence of Beta” in SA. This is despite the fact that the Beta variant has long ceased to be a factor in SA, with a nearzero prevalence. The factual situation is that the dominant variant in SA is Delta, as is the case in the UK.

This raises questions about the quality of intelligence provided to the UK government about the situation in SA by its mission here, and the damage it might do to our national interests, and the relationship between our countries.

SA, with its world-class genomic sequencing capacity, has been meticulous in tracking the disease — and has been commendably transparent about its findings. It should, therefore, not have been too difficult for the UK decision-makers to obtain the true facts about the Covid situation here.

In particular, the UK’s incomprehensible decision has raised the ire of many because it represents a body blow to a South African tourism sector barely back on its feet after being devastated by Covid, and which is a major contributor to employment creation.

Keeping SA on the red list threatens to undo much of the hard, costly work that has been done by the tourism sector to position SA as a favourite holiday destination for British travellers.

By all accounts, SA made a concerted effort to give the UK authorities the necessary data and to try to persuade them to remove us from the red list. Even Pandor engaged with her UK counterpart. It is concerning that, as reported elsewhere in this newspaper, Pandor was apparently fobbed off when she tried to obtain clarity.

On the face of it, the decision also beggars logic as to which countries stay on the red list or get removed. How come, for instance, countries with more Covid infections, like Pakistan and Turkey, have been removed from the list but not SA? This is quite apart from the fact that SA has a lower infection rate than the UK itself.

Rather than sending us on a wild goose chase, it behoves the UK to give the reasons for its decision in coherent and credible terms. Assuming plausible reasons do indeed exist, transparency would surely assist SA to address whatever concerns there are on the part of the UK authorities. Otherwise, the decision will seem arbitrary — even malicious.

The UK high commission said this week that Britain “values its long and important relationship with SA”. Yet the UK government’s actions suggest an intention to wilfully damage that relationship. It is not unreasonable to ask: with friends like the UK, who needs enemies?

It is imperative that engagement with the UK government to urgently resolve the issue continues — at the highest level.

The decision represents a body blow to South African tourism