East African Cooperation minister Harrison Mwakyembe speaks in Dar es Salaam yesterday. Left is Permanent Secretary Joyce Mapunjo. PHOTO | EMMANUEL HERMAN
Tanzania will not hit back at Kenya for banning its registered tour vans from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi, according to Minister for East African Cooperation Harrison Mwakyembe.
Even as he described it as an undiplomatic move, Dr Mwakyembe told a press conference in his office yesterday that his ministry would pursue the issue diplomatically chiefly because of the friendly relations between the two countries over the years.
His ministry is coordinating a multi-sectoral meeting that will develop the country’s common stand on the 1985 agreement with Kenya on safeguarding tourism attractions in the two countries. The agreement bars operators in one country from directly sending tourists to the other’s attractions. Dr Mwakyembe wondered why Kenya considered JKIA a tourist attraction and added that Tanzania would not retaliate.
“We are not going to do what our neighbour has,” he said. “Tanzania will continue to allow vehicles registered in any of the countries to receive and send tourists to all our airports because they (airports) are not part of our tourist attractions.”
In the meantime, Tanzania will respect the decision of Kenyan authorities, even though the neighbouring country was contravening the 1985 bilateral agreement, which did not list airports as tourist destinations and, therefore, restricted areas.
The ban came in December. Tourism and Natural Resources Minister Lazaro Nyalandu reportedly approached his Kenyan counterpart, Ms Phyllis Kandie, in mid-January and they resolved to temporarily lift the ban to make room for negotiations within three weeks. According to Mr Nyalandu, he then asked the EAC ministry to organise the meeting. On Friday, though, Ms Kandie announced that her government was reinstating the ban since the agreed period passed without word from Tanzanian authorities.
Asked why Tanzania had not used the three weeks to find a lasting solution, Dr Mwakyembe replied: “This is not a matter to be resolved by two ministers alone and giving each other ultimatums. The 1985 agreement has been maintaining sanity in the tourism industry between our two countries, which share almost the same nature of attractions.”
Given the importance and history of the matter, the ministry reportedly reached out to the ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Industries, Finance, Home Affairs, Defence, Parliamentary Committee on Lands, Natural Resources and Tourism and players in the private sector to help arrive at a national decision about the matter before facing the Kenyan authorities.
But the government, he said, was saddened to see the Kenyans use the ban to force Tanzania to the negotiation table. He assured Tanzanians that they would not make decisions that were not in their interest and did not favour it. According to Dr Mwakyembe, the consultation aims at coming up with grounds for reviewing the 1985 agreement. Judging by his statement, though, the government might be digging in for a long tussle with the Kenyan authorities. “While we are abiding with the ban,” he said, “we will inform all those who wish to visit Tanzania of the situation and advise them to use alternative airports and, preferably, local airports to avoid the disturbance and unnecessary additional costs.”
He also referred to the ban as a “small matter” in the vast industry and said it would not give the country a “heart attack”.
According to the permanent secretary in the ministry, Ms Joyce Mapunjo, the matter is already being resolved by a team of experts from both countries. The team met on January 13 and 14 and recommended that the permanent/principal secretaries on both sides initiate the process of reviewing the bilateral agreement and co-operation in tourism.
The team also suggested that since Tanzania is the chair of the East African Community, the country should host the meeting before March 31. Ms Mapunjo added: “We are doing our own analysis of the matter. We are now in February and the question here is why they are trying to force things now, 30 years after the agreement was signed, and the trend shows that our market is growing.”
