Entry visas between Uganda and South Africa should be scrapped, Prof Lekoa Solly Mollo, South Africa’s high commissioner to Uganda, has suggested.
He said visa-free travels to either country are important because of the two countries’ political history and increasing volumes of trade, he said in an interview with The Observer.
Mollo added that with the current number of Ugandans going to South Africa and South Africans coming to Uganda for trade, business, education and tourism surging, there is need to abolish visas and ease travel for the economic development of both countries.
“Trade relations between the two countries have increased with over 70 South African companies such as MTN, Stanbic [bank] working in Uganda,” he said.
“Children go to school between the two countries and even in Makerere [University], we have South Africans, we have them in primary schools and the same applies to Ugandans studying in South Africa,” he added.
He noted that Uganda played a key part in the liberation of South Africa from the apartheid regime and, therefore, there was every reason to scrap the entry visa requirement.
“You cannot talk about South Africa’s freedom without talking about Uganda, the two countries that provided us a home were Uganda and Tanzania,” Mollo said.
“The relationship between Uganda and South Africa is a historical one; it’s not a relationship that was crafted with the signing of memorandums in boardrooms, but a relationship born out of the struggle for freedom in the trenches of battle through sweat and blood.”
According to Mollo, preparations to make this a reality are underway after both South African and Ugandan authorities bought the idea.
“At an official level, the request has already been made and technocrats of both countries are working on all those things; it’s not something easy because of terrorism,” Mollo said.
“Why it is delaying is that there is need of engaging various state security organs and Interpol, but the thinking is the right one and in the right direction,” he said.
Source: JONATHAN KAMOGA/Observer
