An article in The Time headlined ‘SA Passport safe: Maseko’ suggested that South African passports are among the safest in the world according to an independent survey. This is t said by a government spokesman who then went on to say a new passport would be introduced within a few months which would contain additional security features.

Now firstly, if they say that our passports are among the top 5 safest in the world, why then do we need new passports? Surely that means they are not as safe as they make them out to be. The safety of South African passports has recently been bought up by the British who are thinking of introducing visa’s for South African’s to enter the UK. Now my understanding was that South Africans now need visas to enter the UK but I guess that is not the case according to the ‘SA Passport safe’ article. The article said: “Government would like to clarify that there was no decision by the British government at this stage to introduce visas to SA travellers,” Maseko said.

So for now, South Africans do not need visa’s to enter the UK contrary to initial beliefs.

Now going back to the new passport issue. Can you imagine the chaos that would cause if they ask every South African to go to Home Affairs and get a new passport? I hope they make this new passport move a gradual transition and start issuing this ‘new passport’ to those who are either applying for their passport for the first time or those renewing and allow those with the current passport to use it until it expires or gets full.

But somehow I do not see this introduction of a ‘new passport’ happening anytime soon. Wasn’t there talk of there being a new ID in South Africa to get rid of the green ID book? We are still waiting for these new ID’s. So maybe it could be a few more years until we see these new passports.

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