As Kenya works on legislation and policy guidelines to waiver visa requirements for African travelling to the country, National Assembly Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Relations, says it does not anticipate a ‘roll-in roll-out’ access with potential to imperil its strategic national security, economic and political interests.

However, relevant ministries and government departments, are in a quandary over the issue that has elicited massive interest and applause from across Africa.

The dilemma of security and economic sectors follows intelligence – at home and abroad – that the East African nation is at present red-flagged by International Police (Interpol) and European Union intelligence and security agencies as a hotspot of transnational organised crime, having overtaken West Africa in human trafficking and smuggling, cybercrime, gun-running and mineral trafficking.

“By the end of this year, no African will be required to have a visa to come to Kenya. Our children from this continent should not be locked in borders in Europe and also be locked in borders in Africa,” President William Ruto said.

Kenya will become the fifth African country to commit to African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) after Gambia, Benin and Seychelles and Rwanda, which opened its borders to African citizens weeks after President Ruto made the announcement in Brazzaville.

Two months before the decision comes into effect on January 1, details of Kenya’s readiness to process increased arrivals are hazy, with the ministry of foreign affairs informing Tell “it is too early to say anything as there nothing substantive”, while Cabinet Secretary for Defence Adan Duale says the important trade, security and diplomatic policies are the remit of the ministry of internal security and foreign affairs.

“This can be handled well cabinet secretary for interior (immigration and internal security and foreign affairs,” Duale responded when asked about the impact of African visa openness on Kenya’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Cognisant of the imminent territorial integrity, political and economic threats that will be unleashed by expected of travel to Kenya, Parliament is said to be working on policy guidelines and legislation to subject visitors to rigid screening to rein in transnational crime. The legislature and executive are currently grappling with the government’s preparedness to juggle the expected high number of arrivals of people, service and goods, without compromising Kenya’s own security, trade and commerce.

“In the legislative proposal we would need to also safeguard key strategic and national needs of Kenya and Kenyans, including protection of our economy and other critical aspects of the state such as defence and national security alongside other preexisting international obligations,” chairman of National Assembly Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Relations, Nelson Koech, says.

Mr Koech says the National Assembly is getting ready for the anticipated influx of foreigners after the removal visa barriers to African nationals to ensure Kenya is not swarmed by aliens who can endanger national security, economy and democracy. He says the specifics of the legislation are not ready but will be centred around hedging against human trafficking and smuggling, contraband goods, expected influx of foreigners once the proposed waiver of visa requirement for African nationals come into effect in January 2024.

“By the end of this year, no African will be required to have a visa to come to Kenya. Our children from this continent should not be locked in borders in Europe and also be locked in borders in Africa,” Ruto said, during an African Union conference on climate in Brazzaville, Congo.

Principal Secretary for Interior Raymond Omollo explained that top on the list of bolstering legislation and policy is protection of economic, security and political interest of the country as the East African nation adjusts to the unstinted cross-border movement of people, goods and services that are likely to have an adverse impact on Kenya’s economy, security and sovereignty.

“The removal visa requirement is an advantage to Kenya. It will open up Kenya to business and this will be harnessed to position Kenya as business hub in the expanded economic region in line with Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA). There is the threat of security and terrorism, but we are exploring how we will share intelligence and information (with other countries) to ensure Kenya’s territorial integrity is not interfered with,” Mr Omollo said.

The PS acknowledges that opening the borders to other African countries may not be automatically reciprocated given Kenya’s economic, skilled labour and infrastructural competitiveness.

“These are ongoing conversations and we hope to iron out the rough edges along the way. It is not a one-off event,” he explained.

Commenting on the expected bottlenecks, Koech explained, “We are ready as the committee that oversights the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs to collaboratively work with the respective State Departments to craft the necessary guidelines; based on the broader objectives and benefits of the same to Kenya.”

He notes, though, that “contemporary analysis has shown that visa requirements are costly and time-consuming, and have been a serious impediment to intra-African trade. African countries have more to benefit by heeding the rallying call from President William Ruto for policy shifts to boost intra-African trade.”

While trade and investment are the driving interest behind the relaxation visa requirement, the ministry of foreign affairs appears to have been caught off-guard by President Ruto’s move on African visa openness.

The office of Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi informed Tell that the matter is still under consideration and it was not ready to comment on it substantively until issues to do with security, governance, external trade, people, goods and services movements are fully addressed and agreed upon by relevant departments.

In the security sector, Directorate of Criminal Investigations boss Mohamed Amin was non-committal on the subject.

Kenya has since 2016 been opening up its economy to other African economies with open visa policy to seven-member East African Community. Outside the regional bloc, it has similar reciprocal diplomatic and trade protocols with Ethiopia, Ghana, Botswana, Namibia, Seychelles, Madagascar, Swaziland and south Africa, among others.

According to Statistica, an international agency that tracks global travel and tourism, visa reciprocity is expected to be a sticking point in the planned African Visa Openness Initiative (AVOI).

It notes that regional reciprocity is still a testy issue in existing economic blocs. For instance, it says:

“On the whole, the members of IGAD (Inter-Governmental Authority on Development) offer little visa openness to each other on a reciprocal basis: their average reciprocity score is only 18 per cent. This belies the fact that some IGAD members rank highly on visa openness when compared to all of the countries on the continent. For example, Somalia has the highest AVOI ranking of all IGAD members, yet reciprocates visa-free entry with none of its fellow IGAD members. In contrast, Kenya ranks highest among IGAD members for reciprocal visa-free access, but its ranking on the continental scale (the AVOI) falls below IGAD’s average. Kenya also ranks highest on visa-free reciprocity in COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) and EAC (East African Community).”

Kenya is a leading exporter of skilled labour in Africa in virtually every field of knowledge – medical, education, research, conservation, mining, human resource and communication, among others. The large pool of skilled and qualified labour-force has been a source of resentment of Kenyans in some countries on the continent. As a result some countries have placed barriers against Kenyans to protect jobs and business opportunities, a challenge Omollo says will be dealt with using legal and diplomatic instruments in the continental free trade area protocol.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics data shows approximately 1.5 million foreigners visited Kenya in 2022 after a slump the previous year that precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The KNBS statistics show the arrivals via international airports were just over two million. The data does not segregate African and non-African travellers, which makes it tougher to project the surge in arrivals.

While visas are traditionally used to restrict international movement, the African Union’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want – an economic and infrastructural development blueprint – identified the requirement as a non-tariff impediment to intra-Africa trade that needed to be erased. Instead, Agenda 2063 has introduced an African passport as the preliminary move to intra-Africa visa requirement to promote trade and commerce.

Visas are costly and time-consuming and translate into high airfares are blamed by African Union as barriers to intra-African travel for African passport holders. At present, 32 out of 54 countries still require the nationals of half or more countries on the continent to obtain a visa, which cost anything between $20-$50.

Comparatively, inter-country travel in the European Union and inter-state in the United States happens without visa impediments. A key concern in Kenyat at present is the prospect reciprocity as may countries are likely to use visa to block Kenyans from visiting the rest of Africa.

A resolution was made at an AU meeting in Addis Ababa in 2015 to: “Introduce an African Passport, issued by member states, capitalising on the global migration towards e-passports, and with the abolishment of visa requirements for all African citizens in all African countries by 2018.”

The objective of an African passport and visa openness is intended to consolidate a “democratic and people-centered Africa, through the universal application of the normative framework of the African governance architecture and all elections on the continent are free, fair and credible… and enhance Africa’s united voice in global negotiations, through pooled sovereignty, integration and the development of common African positions.”

With an economy that has for decades been one of the most resilient in sub-Saharan Africa alongside that of South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Mauritius and Botswana, East Africa’s largest economy is bracing for an unbridled influx of African nationals looking jobs, business, heath services or escaping conflict at home.

• A Tell report / JK