Ghana and South Africa finalize visa free regime announced in 2019
Yesterday October 13, 2023, both Ghana and South Africa announced that from November 1, 2023, ordinary passport holders of the two countries would not need to obtain visas from their respective countries before they travelled to each other’s countries, neither would they need to obtain visa-on-arrival.
The two countries have therefore established a visa free regime for ordinary passport holders.
In July 2019, the South African government announced visa free regimes for citizens of some countries including Ghana. Ghana however, has a visa on arrival regime for all African Union member countries, including South Africa.
The South African government at that time, said it was yet to discuss the details of how that would work with the governments of the countries and when the regime will come into effect.
The Minister of Home Affairs, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi made the announcement Wednesday July 10, 2019 in the South African Parliament during a speech on the occasion of the vote on the Home Affairs budget.
“Today, we wish to announce an addition to our visa – free countries. These are: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Ghana and Sao Tome and Principe. We will immediately enter into discussions with them about how a visa-free regime will work. We still have some homework to do for three countries whose combined populations make up close to 30 per cent of the world’s population i.e. China, India and Nigeria,” he said.
He also said, “while we are busy tackling the matter of the three countries. For now we shall this financial year, increase two and half times the number of people who work for Home Affairs to process visas in both China and India. We shall increase two times the number of people who process visas to our country in Nigeria.”
Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the South African High Commission in Ghana have both issued statements October 13, 2023 announcing the agreement.
The Ministry said it has entered into an agreement for visa waiver for holders of ordinary passports.
“Travellers might transit through, depart from and stay in the territory of both countries for a cumulative period of up to 90 days without recourse to work,” the statement said, adding that the agreement would take effect from November 1, 2023.
The South African High Commission in its announcement said the two governments have agreed to implement the waiver for visas for ordinary passport holders for a cumulative period of 90 days per annum, with effect from November 1, 2023.
“Should the 90 days be exhausted within the 12 months period, ordinary passport holders are required to apply for a visa to enter South Africa,” it added.
In the 2022 Africa Visa Openness Index published by the African Union Commission (AUC) and African Development Bank (AfDB), Ghana was cited among the top 20 countries in Africa to have improved visa openness in the last six years. South Africa didn’t even feature among the sizeable number of Southern African countries that were noted to have also improved significantly. These were Angola, Malawi, Namibia, São Tomé and Principe and Zimbabwe.
Ghana and South Africa are very different economics in Africa. The GDP per capita generated by Ghana is approximately $2,200, while South Africa’s is around $6,400.
By Emmanuel K Dogbevi
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