Kenya is weighing a Sh25,000 business visa fee for Tanzanian nationals entering the country for business, in a move framed as reciprocity after Tanzania kept charging East African Community residents.
The fee in Tanzania is linked to the issuance of a certificate of temporary assignment. EAC partner states have treated it as a non-tariff barrier, while Tanzania has insisted the charge is a pass fee rather than a visa.
Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya said Kenya would keep pursuing the discriminatory visa or pass fee until Tanzania drops its charges. “We consider charging the same to Tanzania for the purposes of harmonisation and reciprocity,” documents seen by the Star read.
Tanzania defended its position before the Sectoral Council on Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment, saying the levy applies to people entering the country to carry out economic activities and professional services, including consultancies.
Under the East African Community framework, residents are supposed to move freely across the partner states without visa requirements. The 35th EAC Council of Ministers meeting in April 2017 directed member states to begin issuing the regional e-passport by January 2018.
Kenya rolled out the e-passport in September 2017, while Tanzania launched its own in January 2018. In September 2018, Tanzania’s Labour Commission rejected a work permit application for Safaricom chief customer officer Sylvia Mulinge.
Labour Minister Gaudensia Kabaka said Mulinge had not met all the requirements for a work permit, although the commission did not publicly spell out the full reasons for the rejection. Mulinge had been appointed by Vodacom, Tanzania’s largest telecoms company, as managing director, but later returned to Safaricom.
The decision drew concern among professionals across East Africa, with critics saying national interests were undermining the region’s integration agenda. That agenda is anchored in Article 104 of the 1999 treaty, which restored the East African Community after 22 years of disintegration caused by political differences between partner states.
