It is completely unacceptable that 18 days before its implementation the Department of Home Affairs has still not issued standard operating procedures for its new regulations that become effective on 1 June, according to David Frost, CEO of Satsa.

The new regulations will affect an estimated 20% of air passengers who travel as a family. They require people under 18 to carry an unabridged birth certificate with them when they cross a South African border.

“We are closing our borders to children,” Frost said in an interview with TV station ANN7. These are draconian measures that Home Affairs has implemented without considering the economic impact on an industry that accounts for over 9% of our GDP and 1.5 million jobs.

Commenting to Tourism Update, Frost said: “It is gob-smacking that after the minister assured the industry in October that the regulations would be reviewed, he has failed to convene a task group. The fact that the president in his state of the nation address said that priority would be given to reviewing the regulations begs the question – what does he mean by priority? The only review could end up being one on the decimation of the industry.”

In 12 days’ time it will be one year since Home Affairs promulgated the regulations. Airlines, which will have to enforce the rules at hundreds of cities from which passengers start their journeys to SA and neighbouring states using Johannesburg as the hub, are increasingly alarmed by the lack of necessary information.

Frost pointed out to Tourism Update that as most families affected used SA’s road borders, it was quite likely that incidents of unrest would occur at these on June 1. Tourism Update in a column has pointed out that according to UNICEF, only one in five minors legally entering South Africa from neighbouring states has any form of documentary proof of birth. Two thirds of minors entering the country cross through SA’s road borders.