Agents locked-out of ‘Locked in South Africa’
Formed during lockdown as a non-profit group fighting for South African’s right to enter and leave the country, the Locked in South Africa (LISA) Group has become a well-known ‘go-to place’ for both clients and agents to source and validate information on repatriation flights. However, when reports were received of agents being removed from LISA groups, Travel News contacted LISA’s founder, Beverley Schafer, to find out more about the group and its current objectives. Sarah Robertson reports.
Why was LISA formed?
“The closing of South Africa’s borders when lockdown was announced resulted in thousands of South Africans being split up from their families and being unable to return to their jobs and studies abroad. It was these stories that spurred us to form #LISA to fight for South Africans’ constitutional rights to be able to enter and leave the country for work, study or family reasons. We are a group of volunteers rather than a formal organisation and we are not affiliated to any political parties,” says founder of #LISA, Beverley Schafer.
She says the group issued legal papers to the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) during Lockdown Level Four, requesting that South Africans who worked, lived or studied abroad should be permitted to leave the country. These efforts were largely successful, as the Minister of the DHA conceded a few days before the court date and changed the legislation to allow South Africans to leave under special circumstances. That was a victory in itself and we began to liaise with various airlines to have charter flights cleared to fly to major regions of the world, says Beverley.
She adds that since these regulations were gazetted, #LISA’s volunteers have set up various social media and WhatsApp platforms to assist South Africans with information about repatriation flights.
“We were also instrumental in setting up many charter flights with various airlines and successfully flew thousands of South Africans to their respective destinations in the past few months. The relationships and systems we developed with government officials have also been very successful,” she says.
Why have some travel agents recently been removed from the LISA WhatsApp groups and why are LISA co-ordinators distributing messages to members warning against booking repatriation flights with travel agents?
“Our volunteers have worked tirelessly and without any compensation since lockdown began. We developed relationships with the right people and had to spend hours understanding processes and how passengers, whether foreign or local, could legally leave. There was so little information communicated by government that we had to spend hours compiling repatriation flight information, which we distribute freely to South Africans to assist them to get home. Our platforms were set up for South Africans who needed to depart, and they have been run with the best interests of our citizens in mind. We have never been a platform to promote business and we have never been a travel agent forum,” explains Beverley.
She says that LISA has received a number of complaints from group members saying they have been taken aside by travel agent members who have tried to sell them flight tickets at inflated prices. Other reports have surfaced of agents who have tried to charge clients for information which they obtained free of charge from the LISA platforms such as information pertaining to quarantine, she adds.
“We certainly do not wish to tar every travel agent with this brush and it is not our policy to exclude travel agents from our groups. If any agent feels that they have been unfairly treated I encourage them to get in touch with me but unfortunately there have been cases of some agents wanting to exploit vulnerable people and we cannot allow our good work done thus far to be destroyed. It is also important to stress that #LISA supports the reopening of South Africa’s borders as soon as possible, and we understand the urgency that is needed here to save jobs in the tourism, travel and hospitality industries. During this time, however, when South Africans have been split from their husbands, wives or children for the past five months our, sole existence is to reunite as many South Africans as possible. Once that is done our volunteer work will be over. We were never in competition with travel agents and have only been doing what is morally right during this difficult time,” says Beverley.
