The South African Government has granted Nigerian business people 10 years’ visas, its Consul-General, Bobby Moroe, disclosed this during the South Africa-Nigeria Trade and Investment Roundtable in Lagos.
Moroe said while some people would get up to 10 years’ visas, others would get three, four, five and more.
The South African Consul-General, however, added that they must apply for visas and they must prove that they are legitimate business people before evaluation and adjudication of their applications.
“If they qualify, they will get 10 years visa or they get seven depending on the nature of the credibility of their application, but there are people who are going to get 10 years visa they are people who have been to South Africa quite a number of times, who also help small investments in South Africa in the business sector, in the film industry, in the academic sector and so on.
“So, we help quite a number of them who have shown interest and it’s in our best interest that we facilitate that to the fullest because it also benefits our own country, South Africa, besides benefiting the relations of the two countries,” he added.
According to him, all the criteria are listed in the Victor France Shanghai (VFS) website urging those who are interested to look at all the requirements however they must also classify their applications.
Moroe however added that those criteria differ from one person to the other, even when applying for a business visa, it depends on which sector such an applicant is, and how often he has been to South Africa, adding in the adjudication process an immigration officer relies on the information that he receives from the applicant.
“So when somebody gets a six months visa, it means the credibility of the information that he has given qualifies him/her for a six months visa, so a decision that the immigration officer takes is based on the credibility of the application itself, it’s not arbitrary, the immigration officer is guided by the application to determine how many years the applicant must get,” he said.
The Consul-General assured that whoever qualified will get the visa adding it’s the normal process. The only difference is that now the number of years of validity of the business has been increased in order to make doing business easy for the two countries and it’s the first of its kind.
