Presidential directive on visa fees hanging
Ministry of Tourism has expressed concern over delays to implement a presidential pronouncement to remove visa fees on international tourists to maximise the tourism industry’s potential and increase foreign exchange generation.
In his State of the Nation Address in February this year, President Lazarus Chakwera announced that government would, with immediate effect, be waiving visa fees on nationals for various countries.
But four months down the line, the plan is yet to be implemented.
Speaking on Tuesday when appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism to discuss progress made on removing the visa fees on international tourists, Ministry of Tourism Principal Secretary Chauncy Simwaka said the waiver is waiting for the Ministry of Homeland Security to have the matter gazetted.
He said: “It is important that we are competitive not only on the regional market, but also on the international market.
“We have to move together with our colleagues in terms of the different aspects and one of them is the Visa fee. Our expectation then was that it would have been waived some months ago.”
Simwaka said the country needs to grow its tourism traffic for the tourism sector to contribute more to the economy.
The ministry seeks to grow the number of tourists from the pre-Covid-19 figure of 900 000 to 1.5 million per year by 2030. Currently, the country gets about 600 000 tourists annually.
According to Simwaka, with the right investment the sector has the potential to contribute up to 15 percent of the country’s GDP, from the current 7 percent.
On his part, Ministry of Homeland Security PS responsible for legal issues Steven Kayuni said the ministry is doing all it can to ensure that the visa waiver is implemented as soon as possible.
He said one obstacle has been the debt that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services is servicing.
“The money for servicing the loan is coming from the visa fee. Since the pronouncement was with immediate effect, we are engaging Treasury on the possibility of settling the loan so that we implement the President’s pronouncement,” said Kayuni.
The value of the loan was about $3.8 million (about K4 billion) and the Department of Immigration has so far repaid $2.3 million.
In a year, the visa system generates about $1.8 million (about K2 billion) and the loan may take a year to settle.
Committee chairperson Paul Nkhoma called for speed in implementing the waiver on visa fees.
“Immediate effect meant the directive was to be implemented from the beginning of the 2023/24 financial year, which is April,” he said.
The waiver is expected to apply to countries such as the United Kingdom, United States of America, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Belgium, Italy, France, Poland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, China, Russia and Canada.
