David Maynier, finance minister for South Africas Western Cape, has proposed that all international visitors be allowed to freely enter South Africa if they can demonstrate they have a negative coronavirus test, including tourists from the UK.
Currently, this is only allowed for business travellers into South Africa but the minister has suggested that this should be extended to leisure travellers.
Mr David has proposed the following: to do away with risk-based country categorisation model; a PCR test for all travellers on arrival, conducted at least 72 hours prior; travellers to be required to download the Covid-19 alert app and complete the tourist locator form, to ensure that details of the trip, including accommodation and length of stay; Port Health officials to screen all travellers and if someone displays any symptoms, they will be referred to a dedicated private testing centre at the airport on their own expense (which needs to be set up); and, setting up a testing centre, which will prevent the use of public transport to reach the testing facilities and will limit the potential spread of the virus.
The minister has also suggested that all visa applications and other home affairs processing should be made paperless, and that government web pages need to provide easy access to information, which needs to be updated regularly.
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