List claiming South Africa has cancelled visa-free agreement with Ghana is fake
There is a list making the rounds on social media that claims South Africa has cancelled the reciprocal visa-free agreement it has with Ghana. The list says Ghanaians holding ordinary passports were allowed to enter South Africa for 90 days, but they would be required to apply for visa and pay for it – but that list is fake, Ghana Business News has been able to establish.
That list is published as a pdf upload on the website of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation a South African government website which makes it believable, but the Spokesperson of President Cyril Ramaphosa, Vincent Magwenya has told Ghana Business News that the list is fake.
It is however, curious that such fake information could so easily be linked to an official government website.
When Ghana Business News asked if it was official that South Africa has cancelled the visa-free agreement with Ghana, Magwenya replied simply on the WhatsApp messaging app: “It’s fake, not true.”
But already the fake list is going viral. When Ghana Business News checked with other South African sources, they checked the source and also believed it could possibly be true.
However, information on the Department of Home Affairs, the government office responsible for foreign affairs says the visa-free regime still remains active.
Data obtained from Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also states clearly that the regime is still in force between the two countries.
Meanwhile, diplomatic relations between Ghana and South Africa have been frosty since the anti-illegal immigration movement in that country intensified and a Ghanaian was killed.
Ghanaian authorities say a citizen, 40-year-old Bashiru Isak was killed as a result of the xenophobic and Afrophobic actions of South African citizens, but South African authorities say that is false, indicating that a Ghanaian was killed, but that death was not connected to the anti-illegal immigration protests.
The Ghana government evacuated its citizens from South Africa fearing for their safety. But that didn’t seem to sit well with some South African politicians.
South Africa first announced visa-free regimes for citizens of some countries including Ghana in July 2019. On October 13, 2023, both countries announced that from November 1, 2023, ordinary passport holders of the two countries would not need to obtain visas from their respective countries before they travelled to each other’s countries, neither would they need to obtain visa-on-arrival. Citizens of the two countries can visit for 90 days without requiring visas before they depart their countries.
By Emmanuel K Dogbevi