It is something that we would dearly love to see implemented – and which was due to be introduced in 2012 – but the common tourist visa for East Africa is still no nearer becoming a reality.
As usual, politics and bureaucracy are standing in the way of plain common sense.
While there is broad consensus among the tourism private sector that this measure is crucially important to encourage tourists to use their stay in the region to visit more than just one country of East Africa, it has been bureaucrats who have stalled the projects. Squabbles over how the Visa fees paid on entry into the EAC would be distributed in case of multiple visits and largely untrue statements over the state of unreadiness vis a vis data capturing of cross border transit, have kept the hopes for an early start down at sub basement level.