SOUTH African agencies responsible for positioning the country as an investment destination have urged the government to waive visa requirements for African countries that have expressed a willingness to invest in the domestic energy sector.
This emerged yesterday on the last day of the Continental Energy Investment Forum 2024 Inward Buying and Investment Mission, which brought together more than 40 delegates from 10 African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Angola, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, the DRC, Egypt, and Mozambique.
However, the delegation and media representatives from Uganda were conspicuously absent from the conference as they all found it difficult to jump through the loopholes of obtaining visas to enter South Africa.
Saki Zamxaka, acting group CEO of the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency (GGDA), said a number of delegates were looking at opportunities for investments in South Africa’s energy sector, but the visa regime was hampering opportunities.
The GGDA is a provincial government agency responsible for facilitating trade, investment and economic infrastructure development projects for the Gauteng City Region.
“One thing that keeps coming up and we are aware of is the movement of people, the visa issues, and we now work very closely with (the Department of) Home Affairs to try to make it easy for people who want to come to South Africa for business to be able to come,” Zamxaka said on the sidelines of the forum.
“So that’s been one of the pain points. It is a big challenge. So while certain things may be continental and regional, a lot of them are also bilateral relations. The bilateral relations with Ghana have gone to a point where that agreement has now been perfected.
“South Africa has found that historically where it’s had visa-free environments when those countries believed that our borders or passport control or visa control wasn't as strong, they then revoked it.
“When we lose the visa-free status it can affect trade and our traditional markets for tourism. It's a bit of a complicated one but I think there is enough appreciation in South Africa that for the economy it is very important that that problem is resolved very quickly.”
The governments of Ghana and South Africa last year reached a visa waiver agreement to allow citizens of both countries to travel visa-free, which took effect from November 1, 2023.
South Africa also reached a similar agreement with Kenya in January 2023.
Newly-appointed Minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber, has committed to fix the dysfunctional work permit system and make headway in reducing the massive visa backlog, which has been cut to around 213 000 applications.
The issue of visas also corresponds with South Africa’s commitment to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, which envisages free movement of people, goods and services on the continent to boost intra-African trade.
Speaking at the forum, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) deputy director-general for exports, Lerato Mataboge, said going big on energy investment was one of the priorities of the AfCFTA.
“I believe that the continental free trade area agreement does prioritise energy. The four industrial sectors that have been highlighted for growth, which are automotives, pharmaceuticals, agricultural processing, as well as transport and logistics, are deemed as high growth sectors that can really accelerate our levels of industrialisation and yield multiple value chains for growth,” Mataboge said.
“But underpinning that, I think there’s an understanding that energy is the catalyst for all of this. We can never industrialise without energy. In terms of the role of power and energy for growth in Africa, it cannot be overemphasised, and I think all our institutions are clear about that.
“The issue that has come out very strongly is that financing in Africa is not an issue. We don’t have a shortage of money to support energy projects. What is at issue is the preparation of those projects and the bankable projects that can be presented for financing. So there’s a huge gap that we need to fill as a continent, as individual member states, as regional economic communities.”
Brand SA general manager for research, Lefentse Nokaneng, said they had highlighted to investors the success stories already registered in the country, especially on security of supply of electricity since the energy crisis had been an albatross for a long time for South Africa.
“The other one which is central and which comes out when we do go to some of these engagements is really to say that our partnerships with business are starting to yield benefits. So the government partnered with Business 4 South Africa last year when we were going through all of these challenges around logistics, around energy,” Nokaneng said.
“Right now the pressures are starting to be ameliorated. And by and large, it is a consequence of this engagement or the partnership that the government has with business. So collaboration is one of the critical things that we put out there to say this is what is assisting the country in terms of moving forward around the energy transition.”
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