Accept the 90-day visa waiver South Africa is offering Ghana – OB Amponsah to government

Ghanaian comedian OB Amponsah has called on the Ghanaian government to consider accepting South Africa's 90-day visa waiver offer for citizens of Ghana.

This request comes after the renowned showbiz personality faced difficulties in securing a visa for the Bloemfontein International Comedy Festival in South Africa this weekend.

In a lengthy post on Facebook on September 2, 2023, OB Amponsah lamented the difficulties he encountered in his attempt to secure the visa wondering why the Ghana government has failed to do the needful.

“I believe moving forward, there should be (if not national), an industry conversation about visa acquisition especially within Africa,” he suggested. “It is sad to lose out on opportunities like these within your own continent. Whoever is in charge should at least accept the 90-day visa waiver SA is offering us. Ah. What kind of leaders do we have?”

His post follows a similar one he made on Friday where he shed light on opportunities that awaited him while sharing his frustration at the intricate visa acquisition process for showbiz personalities.

He was bewildered by the frustrating visa application process for African travelers within the continent, emphasizing that Africans should not face such difficulties when traveling to other African countries.

About the waiver, as reported by Aviation Ghana

Ghana is yet to act in respect of a 90-day visa-free arrangement for ordinary passport holders with the Republic of South Africa (RSA), despite the challenges businesses and individuals currently have to go through to acquire a visa to travel to the Southern African nation.

AviationGhana sources close to the issue, explained that the South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Regional Cooperations tabled the offer more than a year ago so as to facilitate trade and investment between the two countries but Ghana is yet to accept the terms.

The Department offered a 90-day visa-free entry per year for Ghanaian ordinary passport holders. Persons who want to stay longer would have the option of applying for a visa to enable them to extend their stay.

However, Ghana is said to have asked for 180 days – a length of time rarely granted in such visa-free arrangements between two nations.

Additionally, the SA Department of International Relations and Regional Cooperations was seeking to have this done through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) since there already exists a bilateral relation between the two countries. However, Ghana says it is to table arrangement through Parliament before it can give effect to same.

The third issue is the removal of undesirable persons from the RSA. RSA wants the Government of Ghana (GoG) to bear the cost of returning its citizens who overstay their welcome or go contrary to the laws of RSA for which reasons they become unwanted in the rainbow nation. GoG disagrees with this, according to close sources with in-depth knowledge about these discussions.

Despite these initial observations raised by Ghana, there has not been any further action on the South Africa visa waiver proposal. The RSA Home Affairs office says it has been waiting all this while for Ghana to act and move the discussions forward so as to actualize the said arrangement.

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