Dar to stay out of EA single visa
What you need to know:
- The visa will help to ease movement of tourists across national borders and make it easier for industry players to offer multi-destination packages. However, Tanzania has declined to join the arrangement for now
Dar es Salaam. The government will not join the fast tracked East African single tourist visa until the relevant fee collection infrastructure that links member states is in place.
The stand comes even as three other EA members -- Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda -- are about to launch the visa.
The visa will help to ease movement of tourists across national borders and make it easier for industry players to offer multi-destination packages.
The spokesman of the ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Chikandi Rumisha, told The Citizen yesterday that the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure was important to enable the exchange of fees, data and other information on tourists.
Mr Rumisha said the government has also considered other issues including security as verification of visitors will only be done at any entry point among the member states.
“The proposed network of sharing data on tourists and fee collection, as well as security issues leaves a lot to be desired,” Mr Rumisha said.
“For instance, when a tourist pays entry fee in Kenya, and he or she gets security problems here, we (Tanzania) will incur costs?” he said.
The single tourist visa has been the subject of discussion for a number of years, with security issues, how to split revenues and visitor screening being among the major issues.
But Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya have seen that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, according to Ms Waturi Matu, a coordinator (Kenya) of the East African Tourism Platform.
Moves to facilitate tourists across EAC borders was given fresh impetus in June under what has come to be termed as ‘the coalition of the willing, when the presidents of Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda met and agreed to strengthen integration and cooperation.
“Rwanda will be in charge of designing the visa, and the plan is to have it launched in January next year with Tanzania and Burundi free to join at any time,” Ms Matu said.
What the single visa means to visitors is that they will only pay $100 instead of three visas for $150.
“Tourism is a key source of income for the East African Community and we support the East African Tourism Platform precisely,” she said.
