Passengers being cleared at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport after using the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system under the visa-free entry policy to Kenya on January 11, 2024.
President William Ruto administration’s ‘visa-free’ entry policy requiring foreigners to register online three days ahead of travel has made Kenya among the most difficult countries to visit on the continent in 2024, a new report suggests.
Kenya has slid 17 places in ease of travel ranking to number 46 out of 54 countries in Africa, according to the Africa Visa Openness Report 2024 which measures how easy it is for Africans to enter one of the countries on the continent.
Kenya’s ranking has dropped from number 29 last year, making it the worst score since the African Union and the African Development Bank (AfDB) started the annual survey in 2016.
The country has lost its position as one of the most welcoming countries on the continent, having been placed at number nine in 2018 when it abolished the visa requirements for foreigners from Africa seeking to travel to Kenya.
The enforcement of the Electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA), which started from January 5 has hurt Kenya’s ranking in the push for “visa-free” entry policy.
The eTA requirements demand that foreigners apply for Kenya entry 72 hours before arrival and pay $30 (about Sh3,900), a condition which analysts insist is a visa by another name.
“Kenya now requires an eTA ahead of travel, and only exempts EAC members. This privilege extends to Burundi, DRC, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, while at the time of writing, Somalia was not included in this list of exempt countries,” AfDB wrote in the Africa Visa Openness Index (AVOI) 2024.
“Kenya’s requiring of an eTA prior to travel for most travellers from other African countries lowered the score, notwithstanding exemptions for EAC member states.”
The requirement, however, excludes nationals of the East African Community members except Somalia, travellers transiting through Kenya and foreigners holding valid work permits, permanent residence certificates and special passes.
The report shows the implementation of the online visa system has forced nationals from 15 countries on the continent, who previously did not require visa to travel to Kenya, to start applying online three days prior to visiting.
Critics have pointed out that the eTA system— the online visitor registration platform — was not accommodative for African traders who need to travel to Kenya for emergency purposes and those wishing to change travel time.
The complaints earlier in the year prompted the Department of Immigration and Citizen Services to exempt citizens of Ethiopia, South Africa, Comoros, Congo-Brazzaville, Eritrea, Mozambique and San Marino from paying the fees when applying to travel to Kenya via eTA.
Kenya’s best position at ninth came in 2018 after then President Uhuru Kenyatta implemented a visa-on-arrival policy for all Africans.
The ranking, however, started worsening from 2021 after Kenya, just like some of the other countries, introduced travel restrictions in a bid to curb the spread of the Covid infections.
At number 46 out of 54 countries, Kenya is only better than Cameroon, Algeria, Egypt, South Sudan, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Libya and war-torn Sudan.
Benin is the easiest country to travel to by Africans, followed by Seychelles, The Gambia, Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Mauritius.
Burundi is ranked at number 11, Somalia (17), Tanzania (20), Uganda (26), and DR Congo (46).
The poor ranking will injure Kenya’s position as a champion of integration on the continent under the African Union-backed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) trading bloc, whose secretariat is based in Accra, which beat Nairobi.
Kenya was amongst the first countries which participated in the pilot phase of the Guided Trade Initiative (GTI) from October 2022 which aimed at stress-testing the operational, institutional, legal and trade policy environment ahead of full rollout of AfCFTA.
The other countries were Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tanzania, Tunisia and Algeria.
“The GTI is a commendable initiative and important catalyst to help drive progress in the AfCFTA, yet it must ultimately be seen as a bridging facility to enable preferential trade between countries that have completed critical aspects of the trade negotiations, and in turn, to finalise national legal processes to implement these outcomes,” the AfDB wrote in the AVOI report.
“From the perspective of movement of people, the GTI can be leveraged as a case for acceleration of movement of persons for the purposes of intra-African trade – including but not limited to trade in services. This is essential because people must follow both the goods and services.”
