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The Herald, May 18, 1981

ZAMBIAN officials at the Victoria Falls Border Post dispensed with immigration formalities yesterday to allow the Minister of Local Government and Housing, Mr Eddison Zvobgo and his party to have an uninterrupted view of the Falls.

The Minister is here for a two-day Local Government Association conference. Mr Zvobgo told the Zambians: “I refuse to take a passport or a visa when I go to Zambia or Mozambique. It is just one country. I have just come home.”

Ninety-one delegates and officials from 14 urban local authorities have gathered for the conference.

The conference will be opened by the acting Prime Minister, Mr Simon Muzenda today.

LESSONS FOR TODAY

• Visas are an endorsement issued by an authorised representative of a country and marked in a passport, permitting the passport holder to enter, travel through, or reside in that country for a specified amount of time, for the purposes of tourism, education, employment, etc.
• People travelling to other countries can apply for several types of visas the most common being for tourism, business, work, transit and student.
• A number of countries within the Southern African region, including Zimbabwe, have scrapped the requirement for visas, especially tourist visas, which has resulted in the free movement of people within the region.
• On a continental scale the African Union under its Agenda 2063 flagship project is pushing for an African Passport and Free Movement of People through the removal of restrictions on Africans’ ability to travel, work and live within their own continent.
• The initiative aims at transforming Africa’s laws, which remain generally restrictive on the movement of people despite political commitments to bring down borders with the view to promoting the issuance of visas by Member States to enhance free movement of all African citizens in all African countries.