Tanzania registered vehicles banned from accessing Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) and game parks in Kenya

Kenya government yesterday banned all Tanzania registered vehicles from accessing Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) and game parks in Kenya.

Information posted on the website of the Kenyan newspaper, The Daily Nation yesterday stated that the East African Affairs, Trade and Tourism Cabinet Secretary Phyllis Kandie said in a statement that a three-week window requested by Tanzania to allow the two countries to discuss and sort out the issue had elapsed.

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“The meeting to discuss these issues has not taken place,” Ms Kandie was quoted by The Daily Nation as affirming. 

“Those three weeks have now expired without our Tanzanian counterparts convening the meeting for the negotiations,” she elaborated.

Ms Kandie said the government had, as a result, resolved to implement the bilateral agreement between Kenya and Tanzania in 1985 to ensure fairness of trade between the two countries.

TANZANIA'S REFUSAL

The decision to invoke the bilateral agreement was taken following Tanzania’s refusal to allow Kenyan vans into the country.

 The agreement stipulates how tourism operations between the two countries should be conducted. 

It provides that tour vans drop holidaymakers at convenient points in their respective countries as opposed to an earlier arrangement where tourists were being dropped at border points. 

The cabinet secretary, however, expressed hope that the 30 year agreement would soon be reviewed to ensure ease of doing business in both countries.

Kenyan authorities on December 22 banned Tanzanian-registered vehicles from dropping or picking up passengers at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. 

EAC Secretary-General Richard Sezibera on Tuesday said they had not been officially notified of the problem "although I have seen reports about it in the media."

The EAC Scretariat had recently urged Tanzania and Kenya to amicably resolve the dispute caused by the decision to deny Tanzanian-registered tour vans entry into Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi.

Ambassador Sezibera was quoted telling journalists in his office that it was the wish of the regional organisation to see the issue resolved swiftly and amicably for the benefit of the region.

“We will encourage anything that will facilitate regional integration,” he edmphasizedd.

Efforts to reach minister for East African Cooperation Dr Harrison Mwakyembe and his Tourism and Natural  Resources counterpart Lazaro Nyalandu yesterday to respond on the new ban proved abortive as their phones went unanswered.

However, early last month Nyalandu reacted on the previous ban, saying the Kenyan decision was retaliation for its stand of refusing to open the northern Serengeti park border post.

“This act jeopardises the long-term bilateral relationship between 

the two countries and must be strongly condemned,” Nyalandu was quoted as telling tour operators in Arusha. Such an act was unwelcome and needed to be reviewed to allow tourists access to transportation, he further stated.

A section of the Tanzania media including The Guardian reported that Kenya’s Tourism Regulatory Authority (TRA) had banned Tanzania’s tour operators and vehicles from taking visitors to Kenya’s game reserves and parks.

KRA Acting Director General Korir Lagat was quoted as telling a stakeholders’ meeting in Kisumu that his country would not allow vehicles bearing Tanzanian number plates enter their parks.

The media said such a move was in response to a similar action by Tanzanian tourism authorities, whom it accused of deliberately locking out Kenyan tour operators from key reserves and the Serengeti in particular. 

The Tanzania government was however quick to act, forming a task force involving four ministries - East African Cooperation, Tourism and Natural Resources, Transport and Industries and Trade to probe the factors behind Kenya’s move. 

The two EAC partner states are major competitors in the multimillion-dollar tourism industry and attract over half of the nearly four million tourists visiting the region annually