Author: svadmin

Protecting the country’s domestic tourism has been identified as the main priority after South Africa was placed on a travel ban by several countries, following the identification of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.

This was consensus reached by relevant stakeholders during an urgent meeting with the Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu on Sunday.

In a statement, the Ministry said the meeting was held to identify how public and private sector stakeholders could proactively collaborate to mitigate the effects instituted by the travel bans. The travel bans came after the South African Health Department revealed the discovery of the variant last week.

The Ministry said in the meeting that the red listing of South Africa and other SADC countries was a “knee jerk reaction” that would negatively impact the peak inbound tourism period.

Prof. Marc Mendelson, infectious diseases and HIV medicine head at the Groote Schuur Hospital, provided a scientific perspective on what the next steps would be in determining the extent to which vaccines would be effective against the new variant.

Minister Sisulu said the meeting was the first of many the Ministry would be holding as a public-private tourism sector war room to deal with crises such as this.

The team, she said, would also address legacy issues that hinder the extent to which tourism could contribute to South Africa’s economy.

The war room was expected to meet regularly to roll out and follow up on practical actions adopted by industry stakeholders to deal proactively with challenges that beset the sector.

She said the immediate priority was to preserve domestic tourism over the upcoming festive season to secure livelihoods.

“While we await scientific certainty surrounding this new variant, the impact to Brand South Africa and the deep tourism value chain has been devastating,” she said.

To this end, the Ministry said stakeholders in the meeting provided several alternatives. These included reducing the size of indoor gatherings, expanding curfew and prioritising vaccination to mitigate the impact on the country’s healthcare system.

Rosemary Anderson, chairperson of FEDHASA said there was no question that South Africans needed to get vaccinated as a “matter of urgency”.

She said: “We depend on tourism for jobs and livelihoods.”

Anderson added that the country could not afford a repeat of December 2020 where restaurants and hospitality businesses bore the brunt of COVID-19 regulations.

“Our industry has had to endure being thrust from wave to wave for the past 20 months and it simply isn’t sustainable to keep businesses open and livelihoods intact. It is up to South Africans to do their part and help us keep our doors open by complying with the protocols and getting their #jab4tourism,” she said.

TBCSA, SATSA, SAACI and Cape Town Tourism were among industry associations that attended the session.

Source: South African Government News Agency

National Assembly Speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, has expressed disappointment at the travel restrictions imposed on certain African countries, including South Africa, by some countries in light of the identification of the new COVID-19 variant.

The Omicron variant was identified by South African scientists last week.

The identification of the variant has created panic around the world, resulting in inbound and outbound travel bans against southern African countries.

Mapisa-Nqakula expressed her disappointment at the 7th Brics Parliamentary Forum which was held on the side-lines of the 143rd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) currently underway in Madrid, Spain.

She is leading a six-member multiparty delegation of the South African Parliament to the Assembly.

She said that COVID-19 was entrenching stereotypes in ways that could never have been imagined. The travel restrictions, which were not informed by science, were essentially a punishment for world class science and responsible global citizenship as well as transparency and openness, the Speaker said.

She concurred with the South African government’s assertion that, as a responsible global citizen, the country was duty-bound to report any new variants of concern to the international community, which has been done without fail due to country’s world-class expertise and monitoring.

The Speaker was accompanied to the meeting by other members of the South African Parliamentary delegation to the IPU, Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP Sylvia Lucas, House Chairperson for International Relations Madala Ntombela, EFF Chief Whip Mr Floyd Shivambu and ANC parliamentarian Judith Tshabalala.

Also making remarks to the meeting, Lucas stressed that women, African women in particular, continued to be disproportionately affected by the economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, which include poverty, unemployment and economic exclusion.

“Women’s quality of life has depreciated as this pandemic threatens to reverse some of the important advances and gains that we have made as women,” she said.

During the same session, Shivambu cautioned against the agenda of certain nations to undermine the unity of the Brics.

The Brics Parliamentary Forum is constituted by the National Congress of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Parliament of the Republic of India, the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, and the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa.

It was founded, among other things, to strengthen and promote contacts at the leadership level of chambers, committees and groups of parliamentarians; perform inter-parliamentary exchanges and hold regular expert consultations; and create and develop new inter-parliamentary cooperation mechanisms.

Source: South African Government News Agency

The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has confirmed the transfer of convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius to a correctional centre in Gqeberha to start a dialogue with the family of his victim, model Reeva Steenkamp.

The disgraced Paralympic gold medalist was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Facility in Tshwane where he is serving a 13-year sentence following the 2013 murder of Steenkamp – his girlfriend at the time.

“The transfer is necessitated by the need to commence with the processes of a victim offender dialogue as the victims are based in Gqeberha. Offenders participate in the victim offender dialogue as part of their rehabilitation path wherein they are able to acknowledge the harm they have caused to their victims and the society at large,” the department said in a statement.

The department emphasised that the move and victim offender dialogue is not a parole process but one that is undertaken prior to consideration for parole.

“This is an internal process and it is our humble plea that all participants be allowed to partake without undue pressure to disclose contents of the engagement. Victim offender dialogues are sensitive, emotional and inconsolable hence they are presided by highly-trained officials who ought to ensure that all parties derive value from the process.

“DCS is unable to pre-empt the timeframe as this will be guided by the level of preparedness by all participants”.

Source: South African Government News Agency

President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the nation at 20h00 today, Sunday, 28 November 2021, on developments in the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The President’s address follows meetings of the National Coronavirus Command Council, the President’s Coordinating Council and Cabinet.

The President’s address will be broadcast and streamed on a range of platforms that are accessible to South Africans and international audiences.

The SABC will provide a live feed for all media.

Media enquiries: Tyrone Seale, Acting Spokesperson to the President – [email protected]

Source: Government of South Africa

President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on all those countries that have imposed travel bans on South Africa and other Southern African countries to urgently reverse their decisions.

He urged them to lift the travel bans they have imposed before any further damage is done to the countries’ economies and to the livelihoods of people.

“There is no scientific justification for keeping these restrictions in place. We know that this virus, like all viruses, does mutate and form new variants,” said the President.

He was addressing the nation on Sunday evening on progress in the national effort to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, at the Union Buildings.

Earlier this week, South African scientists identified a new variant of the Coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease. The World Health Organisation has named the variant Omicron and has declared it a ‘variant of concern’.

The Omicron variant was first detected in Botswana and subsequently in South Africa, and scientists have also identified cases in countries such as Hong Kong, Australia, Belgium, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Israel.

Countries that have imposed travel restrictions on South Africa include the United Kingdom, United States, European Union members, Canada, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Japan, Thailand, Seychelles, Brazil and Guatemala, among others.

“We are deeply disappointed by the decision of several countries to prohibit travel from a number of Southern African countries following the identification of the Omicron variant.

“This is a clear and completely unjustified departure from the commitment that many of these countries made at the meeting of G20 countries in Rome last month.”

President Ramaphosa said they had pledged at that meeting to restart international travel in a safe and orderly manner, consistent with the work of relevant international organisations such as the World Health Organisation, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the International Maritime Organisation and the OECD.

The G20 Rome Declaration noted the plight of the tourism sector in developing countries, and made a commitment to support a “rapid, resilient, inclusive and sustainable recovery of the tourism sector”.

The President said the travel restrictions are “unjustified and unfairly discriminate against our country and our Southern African sister countries”.

“The prohibition of travel is not informed by science, nor will it be effective in preventing the spread of this variant. The only thing the prohibition on travel will do is to further damage the economies of the affected countries and undermine their ability to respond to, and recover from, the pandemic,” he said.

He added that the likelihood of the emergence of more severe forms of variants is increased significantly where people are not vaccinated.

“That is why we have joined many countries, organisations and people around the world who have been fighting for equal access to vaccines for everyone. We have said that vaccine inequality not only costs lives and livelihoods in those countries that are denied access, but that it also threatens global efforts to overcome the pandemic.”

President Ramaphosa said the emergence of the Omicron variant should be a wake-up call to the world that vaccine inequality cannot be allowed to continue.

“Until everyone is vaccinated, everyone will be at risk. Until everyone is vaccinated, we should expect that more variants will emerge. These variants may well be more transmissible, may cause more severe disease, and may be more resistant to the current vaccines.

“Instead of prohibiting travel, the rich countries of the world need to support the efforts of developing economies to access and to manufacture enough vaccine doses for their people without delay,” said President Ramaphosa.

Source: South African Government News Agency