South Africa to Issue 5-year Visas to Nigerians

South Africa is prepared to relax its immigration restrictions to encourage a boosted economic relationship with Nigeria.

 

The South African High Commissioner to Nigeria, Lulu Mnguni, has reported his administration’s choice to initiate the issuance of 5-year visas to Nigerian experts, businessmen and other regular fliers.

Talking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos Wednesday, Munguni said his administration was currently arranged to wipe out the troubles typically confronted by Nigerians when looking for South African visas.
The diplomat also said his government was moving away from having political diplomacy to more of economic diplomacy with Nigeria.
“There has been growing concerns from both Nigeria and South Africa on the issue of visas. There have been complaints by Nigerians on how they are treated when seeking visas,” he said.
“Our president has indicated that Nigeria and South Africa need to intervene by making it easier for our nationals to have visas to our two countries.

“We came to an agreement that business people and frequent fliers between South Africa and Nigeria will qualify for long-term visas of two, three, and five years. We have totally moved from political diplomacy to economic diplomacy. And to promote this new economic diplomacy, there needs to be a smooth movement of people between our two countries.”

Mnguni said he had made a proposition to his Government for the enrollment of more staff, in order to have the capacity to quickly take care of the interest of Nigerians for visas to South Africa.

“We need a friendship that resides with our people. Nigeria and South Africa need to criticise each other in a constructive way,” he said.

South Africa is one of the main destinations for Nigerians who travel abroad. As at 2013, there were more than 250,000 Nigerians dwelling in the nation.

“We need to look at how we can unplug some of the irritants that have undermined our cohesion.”

DOLLAR UP AGAIN 13th FRIDAY MAY 2016

 

The Nigerian currency has reportedly crashed against the dollar, both officially and on the parallel market. Sahara Reporters is reporting that this is as a result of the devaluation of the Nigerian currency following the removal of fuel subsidy. On Friday, May 13, reports say the naira now sells for N290 and N345 at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and black market respectively. Sahara Reporters’s post reads: “FLASH: Nigeria buckles, devalues its national currency. Naira secretly devalued to N290 to a $1. Now sells at N360 in the black market” As at the time of filing this report, our correspondent tried to reach out to the bureau de change operators for the true state of things on the black market, but they did not pick up their calls.

Get Surprise at Nigeria Number Leading Internet Service Provider

Latest report by the telecoms industry regulator has reaffirmed Globacom as market leader in internet services in Nigeria. 

The industry statistics for the first quarter of 2016 revealed that Globacom had a total of 26,530,420 data subscribers as at March 31, 2016, indicating an addition of 1,448,354 new customers in the first three months of the year. 

In January, the company garnered 354,178 new data users, 248,593 in February and 845, 583 in March.

The total figures recorded by Globacom represent 80 percent of the total number of 1,820, 651 new data users who subscribed to internet services provided by the four major telecom operators in the country from January to March 2016. 

This steady increase in data subscribers for Globacom has been ascribed to the company’s recent improvement in network quality and its continuous development of new offerings that offer unbeatable values to various market segments. Some of these offerings are the Campus Booster, Twin Bash and attractive data plans. 

However, the figures for the other operators are not as cheery. Within the first quarter of 2016, Airtel recorded a total of 319, 229 new data users, while Etisalat pulled 53, 068 new internet users. Both networks account for the remaining 20 percent of new internet users for the first three months of this year. 

The worst hit was MTN which lost over 6,500,000 internet users during the period. The network began the quarter with 39, 924, 737 data users on its network and ended it with 33,356,595. Globacom has in recent time remained consistent as the preferred choice for new internet subscribers. 

For instance, at the end of last quarter of 2015, it was the only network that recorded an increase in its internet subscriber base with an addition of 3.2m new internet subscribers. MTN, Airtel and Etisalat all lost data subscribers. MTN lost almost 2 million subscribers, Airtel lost close to 900,000 subscribers, while Etisalat lost 408,282 subscribers.