EAC Treaty on test as Kenya and Rwanda Breach Tourist Visa Deal with Uganda
By EADM Correspondent and Agencies


Dallas, Texas—Threats by Uganda to restore its local tourist visa following a breach of the single East African tourist’s visa system by Kenya and Rwanda will deal a death blow to the single tourists visa arrangement and may have far-reaching implications on the EAC treaty as it exposes cracks in the regional integration process. The single East African tourist’s visa system, a multi-entry visa costing $100, introduced in February 2014, followed an agreement between Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The single visa grants a tourist a 90-day validity period to tour any of the three of the five EAC member countries. Tourism contributes the highest percentage of foreign exchange to the three EAC member countries.

However, there are now clear signs that the single East African tourists visa system is collapsing. Uganda is accusing its partners in the deal; Kenya and Rwanda of violating the agreement because they are issuing their own local visas to tourists instead of the single EAC tourist visa, a clear breach of the spirit of the tripartite agreement. “Since Kenya and Rwanda have not honored the agreement under which the visa system was formulated, Uganda is planning to re-introduce its own local tourist visa,” Uganda’s Tourism Minister Maria Mutagamba told news agencies in Kampala recently.
“While we embraced the single EAC tourist visa wholeheartedly, unfortunately, our brothers and sisters in the two countries; Kenya and Rwanda, while they introduced the East African visa, they also maintained their local tourist visa. Otherwise, as Uganda, we have actually been remitting our funds religiously and the other countries are remitting less and the explanation is: they are selling their own visas and not the East African visa", Minister Maria Mutagamba complained.

Should Uganda go ahead and make good on its threats to restore its local tourist visa, it will have dealt a death blow to the single tourist’s visa agreement, a key component and symbolic milestone in the EAC integration process. The fall-out may also expose potential cracks developing in the integration process and stalk suspicions that could have far-reaching implication on other mega projects including the construction of the standard gauge railway, oil pipeline, the issuance of EAC passports next year, and other economic initiatives the three countries and the EAC in general are implementing or plan to roll-out.

Minister Maria Mutagamba said that “the tourism sector is agitated. They say; ‘we must have our own tourism visa as Uganda’ so that we can also get our tourists coming here directly until we agree that we are going to have one tourist visa. They are very upset about the decrease in the number of tourists arrivals in Uganda because all tourists are going to other countries as a result of that unfulfilled or ununderstood arrangement we entered in,” she complains.
Understandably, any disruption in tourists’ arrivals into the country that translates into a steady flow of the much-needed foreign exchange into Uganda is viewed with the gravest concern. The Minister says that reduction in foreign tourists is one of the reasons for the drop in foreign revenues experienced in the sector. Yet, tourism is the highest foreign exchange earner for Uganda. Records from the Uganda Tourist Board (UTB), the body in charge of implementing the tourism policy and overseeing the tourism sector indicate that Uganda earned a total of over $ 1.4 billion in 2014 up from $600,000 in 2006. Currently, tourist arrivals into Uganda reached 1.3 million in 2014, up from 600,000 tourist arrivals in 2006.

A reduction in tourist arrivals, therefore, is negatively impacting the Ugandan economy in a significant way.
The Observer Newspaper in Uganda reported recently that Minister Mutagamba said Uganda had failed to reap benefits from the single East African tourist visa system because the number of tourists visiting the country dropped as a result of Kenya and Rwanda failing to honor their side of the agreement. "That is a problem. In fact it is causing me a crisis in the sector as both tourist arrivals and revenues have dropped,” she said.

Indeed, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) earned total revenue of 42.7 billion shillings in the statement of comprehensive income compared with 56 billion shillings realized in the year 2013/14 according to the Auditor General's report of 2014/15. The UWA suffered a deficit of 12.6 billion shillings as opposed to a surplus of 3.72 billion shillings in the previous year, the report states.

Minister Mutagamba expressed hope that when she takes the matter to the Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, the issue will be resolved in favor of restoring a local Ugandan visa to protect the country’s burgeoning tourism industry.