10,000 teaching jobs on the line as Dar expels aliens

The ongoing crackdown on immigrants in Tanzania is causing anxiety among Kenyan professionals as attention turns to the high cost and lengthy process of obtaining permits to work in East Africa’s most populous state.

Tanzania has been expelling immigrants from its territory following expiry of a grace period it had granted unregistered foreigners to leave voluntarily.

Though originally targeted at the millions of refugees from Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo, the crackdown has not spared Kenyan and Ugandan immigrants who are required to pay exorbitant fees to get work permits in a lengthy and painfully slow process that employers say is counterproductive to any gains they could make from hiring expatriates.

Kenyan teachers working in Tanzania’s private schools are among the hardest hit by the crackdown on foreigners. Most of the teachers now face the prospects of being shoved back to Kenya’s already crowded labour market, having failed to secure work permits because of bureaucracy and prohibitive costs.

Tanzania charges a princely annual fee of $2,000 (Sh174,000) for a work permit and applicants must wait up to five months to obtain the documents.

The high cost and lengthy administrative procedures have forced most institutions to engage foreign workers informally, leading to their current predicament.

“Even those who can readily afford the documents find it very difficult to obtain a work permit in Tanzania,” said Eric Mutua, chairman of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK).

By comparison, Rwanda has waived work permit fees for EAC citizens while Uganda charges Sh127,500 and takes up to 30 days to process applications.

Kenya, which initially waived fees for East Africans, has since reintroduced a Sh168,000 charge on job seekers under the age of 35.

(READ: Kenya locks out young and low-paid foreign workers)

A recent survey conducted by East African Business Council found that most businesses in the region have chosen to side-step the regulatory burden surrounding work permits by hiring only locals even where the skills required are lacking nationally.

Professionals said difficulties associated with obtaining work permits had made it impossible to set up consultancies across the region despite the regional integration project.

“Even after getting the work permit, most professionals still get discouraged by the time-consuming regulatory requirements they have to comply with in partner states,” said Collins K’Owuor, chairman of the Institute of Surveyors of Kenya.

Mr K’Owuor, however, defended the length of time and rigorous process of vetting labour, saying professional bodies have a duty to ensure high standards of service delivery across the region.

East Africa was expected to drop the work permit requirement with the launch of the Common Market protocol in July 2010. But nearly three years down the line, the Tanzania government has stepped up its expulsion of foreign nationals without work permits.

(READ: Tanzania should rethink work permit fees plan)

Thousands of Kenyans and Ugandans have been caught up in the campaigns that initially caused diplomatic row between Dar and Kigali following the expulsion of hundreds of Rwandese from Kagera region.

Last week, Tanzanian daily, The Citizen reported that the list of immigrants facing expulsion includes 10,000 teachers from Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia who have been working in Tanzania’s private schools mainly as English teachers.

“They have been knocking on doors and introducing themselves as immigration officers. They demand to see work and residence permits. Those who don’t have them are forced to part with tidy sums of money,” the newspaper quoted a Tanzanian resident Juma Abdallah as saying last week.

The campaign has drawn sharp criticism from Tanzania Association of Managers and Owners of Non-Government Schools and Colleges, which said its members had failed to obtain the work permits because of high fees charged.

The deportations have put Tanzania on the spot again even as the region continues to debate the validity the Yellow Fever vaccination cards it continues to demand from fellow East Africans.

Lately, the other EAC member-states have also questioned Tanzania’s continued use of official rubberstamp that bans their citizens from engaging in income-generating activities.

The country’s immigration rubberstamp categorically reads: “allowed to stay for 3 months. Employment with or without pay is strictly prohibited”.

Through its non-tariff barrier (NTB) monitoring tool, the EAC Secretariat says the procedure for issuing work permits has since been simplified in other EAC states except Tanzania.

“Tanzania is in the process of reviewing relevant laws on work and residence permit, in line with the EAC Common Market Protocol,” the NTB report says.

To make work permits accessible, professional bodies in EAC member-states must sign voluntary pacts to mutually recognise national qualifications.

Mr Mutua said only Tanzania’s professional bodies have declined to sign pacts that compel signatories to recognise lawyers and engineers from other member-states.

Signing the pacts mean that a lawyer recognised by LSK or an engineer registered in Kenya would obtain a work permit to practise in Tanzania without being subjected to national pre-qualification criteria.

The campaign to get Tanzania’s professional bodies to recognise academic and professional qualification by various member-states is still on.

“We are at advanced stage of getting all professional bodies in the region to sign pacts recognising qualifications and standards of other member-states which are critical for cross-border movement of labour,” said Association of Professional Societies in East Africa CEO Grace Injene.

Just like the fees vary from country to country, the region has also been grappling with various classifications and procedures for obtaining the work permits.