By Amos Wekesa
By yesterday so many Ugandan tour operators heading to Durban, South Africa had been denied visas. Indaba is the third most important tourism exhibition in the world after ITB and WTM in London. Ugandan tour operators go there every year to push for business and denying Ugandans visas is a very shocking act by South Africans.
South Africans make over USD 500m from us every year through MTN, Stanbic bank, Shoprite, Eskom, Game etc. and we make less than USD 100m from them. The Ugandan tour operators have already paid for accommodation, transport and exhibition fees to the South African organizers. Last month, millions of shillings were lost to South Africa many were denied visas to attend the WTM, Cape town.
I called up a few ministers and some told me that they (with red passports), were being given visas. I was shocked that they did not put up a fight for the Ugandan tour operators to receive visa. Do we really need the president even in matters like this? Where are our ministers? This is economic sabotage by South Africans who are happily reaping from Ugandans. They repatriate so much money from our economy back to their country. What Uganda should do is deny their business people visas into Uganda as well. They walk into our airport and get visas at the airport without any hustle. They should be made to taste their own medicine like they are doing to us…….Lets wake up if this economy is to grow at all.
I am sure so many other Ugandans in other sectors are suffering the same way. South Africa is already the second largest economy on the continent and they are in that position because of the money they make from countries like Uganda.
Our media houses this should be our headline: “Uganda must be rallied to boycott South Africa companies until their government wakes up……”
