The Dubai has waived the degree requirement for Kenyans

The United Arab Emirates has waived the degree requirement for Kenyans seeking entry into Dubai.

Foreign minister Moses Wetangula said Wednesday the Arab country, which attracts many Kenyan businesspeople, had lifted the demand on Kenyans applying for a visa after holding talks with a delegation from the government led by Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetangula and his Labour counterpart John Munyes.

It emerged that at the heart of the diplomatic rift between the two countries was the sudden influx of non-Kenyans travelling to Dubai from Mogadishu using forged Kenyan passports.

Forged passports

Addressing the press Wednesday, Mr Wetangula disclosed that UAE authorities had expressed concern at the number of non-Kenyans arriving in the oil-rich emirate from Mogadishu using forged Kenyan passports.

“Besides the issue of the deportation of their nationals, UAE raised concern about many people who arrive in Dubai, having flown in directly from Mogadishu and other countries other than Kenya but holding Kenyan passports that are obviously forged,” said the minister, who was flanked by the head of political affairs at the ministry, Mr P Wamoto.

Mr Wetangula flew to Dubai last month after the UAE imposed new and stringent requirements for Kenyans seeking to travel to the oil-rich emirate.

“Besides the issue of the deportation of their nationals, UAE raised concern about many people who arrive in Dubai, having flown in directly from Mogadishu and other countries other than Kenya but holding Kenyan passports that are obviously forged,” said the minister, who was flanked by the head of political affairs at the ministry, Mr P Wamoto.

Mr Wetangula flew to Dubai last month after the UAE imposed new and stringent requirements for Kenyans seeking to travel to the oil-rich emirate.

The row stemmed from the overzealous actions of officers from the anti-terrorism police unit based in Mombasa over the Easter weekend.

The security officers are said to have arrested four people they claimed were terror suspects and locked them up at the Moi International Airport, Mombasa.

Grilled for hours

The four, who had already spent a week in the country had flown to the coastal city that fateful weekend when they were arrested by the detectives, grilled for hours before being flown back to Nairobi.

A decision was then made to deport them to Dubai on grounds that they posed a serious threat to the country’s security.There are over 37,000 Kenyans living and working in Dubai, mainly in the hospitality and construction industries whose jobs were at stake following the imposition of the new requirements.

The Kenyan delegation, which also included Kisauni MP Ali Hassan Joho, held talks with representatives of the Kenyan labour force in Dubai with a view to seeking ways of protecting their jobs in the wake of the new requirements.

Dubai rejects Kenya’s bid to end visa row

By KEVIN MWANZA Business Daily

Kenya’s bid to settle a month-long diplomatic row with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over new visa rules appears to have flopped, signalling that thousands of traders will remain locked out of their most popular source market for imported consumer goods.

A statement posted on UAE’s government website said that the visa issue was not part of the agenda of the talks with a team of Kenyan diplomats that visited Dubai early this week, suggesting that no agreement had been reached on the matter.

“The visit by Kenya’s Foreign minister was to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries. It has absolutely nothing to do with the false media reports on (deportation of UAE officials),” said the statement signed by Sultan Al Qurtasi Al Nuaimi, a director of Consular Affairs at UAE’s Foreign ministry.

When they left for the UAE, the team of diplomats, led by Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetangula, had placed the new visa conditions that bars non-graduate Kenyans from visiting the emirate top on their agenda.

UAE government’s position gained credence on Wednesday after the Kenyan delegation failed to send a statement they had promised on the outcome of the talks.

Instead, Mr Wentangula flew out of the emirate for China where he joined President Kibaki who is on an official visit to Shanghai.

The Foreign Affairs ministry’s silence means that Dubai continues to uphold its new visa rules, putting at risk the livelihoods of Kenyan importers of goods such as electronics, textiles, household goods and industrial products from the free port city that was valued at Sh113 billion last year.

It could also hurt the flow of more than Sh300 million in monthly remittances or 10 per cent of the country’s total monthly remittance from Kenyans working in UAE and whose jobs are now on the line.

Sultan Al Qurtasi said that the degree requirement was introduced to regulate the flow of Kenyans to the Emirate, refuting claims that it was in retaliation for a recent deportation of the UAE citizens.

The degree directive is only applicable to Kenyan citizens, according to the website.

Kenya’s Foreign Affairs ministry officials on Thursday said they had no fresh information on the minister’s trip to UAE, adding that Mr Wetangula and his permanent secretary had moved from Dubai to China.

The volume of trade between the two countries has tilted in favour of UAE as Kenya’s imports stood at Sh113 billion in 2008 compared to exports of Sh7.5 billion.

“Dubai is the one of the largest destination for Kenya’s human resource export and also a major source of cheap products for both local consumption and re-export to other countries in this region,” said Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, former Trade minister.

About 36, 000 Kenyans are currently working in the UAE, notably in the construction and hospitality industries, according to the immigration ministry.

Exporters of commodities have begun to feel the pinch of the spat.

“Some of my business associates who deal in spare parts and sell refurbished vehicles from Dubai have been hit badly by the directive as they can’t get more stock for their business and have to source from Singapore or Japan,” said Mr David Kinyanjui, a car dealer in Nairobi who frequently travels to Dubai for business.

But Mr Kinyanjui is not alone. The same story is repeated by electronics, textiles, household goods importers interviewed.

“I’ve been forced to use other people who have degrees to sources for my goods from Dubai because I don’t have a degree my self,” said Mr Ben Kimeu, a computer accessories dealer at the Jamia Mall in Nairobi. “This has cost me a lot in terms of not getting the right quality of equipment and delays of up to a month. I used to restock every week, but now I have to do it once every month,” said Mr Kimeu, adding that he has lost between Sh800, 000 and Sh1.5 million in the three weeks the new visa requirement has been in effect.

Already, Kenyans working for UAE companies such as Emirates Airlines have been asked to comply with the directive, in a move that has placed some jobs on the line.

Some analysts have been arguing that severed relations with the UAE is not going to affect the country as much on the basis that the volume of trade between the two countries is unfairly tilted in favour of UAE, while Kenya can still get sources for its imports from the other countries in the Asian region.

The total volume of trade last year between the two countries stood at Sh100 billion mostly re-exports to countries such as Uganda, Rwanda and Congo a huge chunk of which entailed electronics and clothing.

Imports from UAE to Kenya include refurbished motor vehicles, petroleum products, beauty products, Jewellery, IT accessories, iron and steel, resins and plastics.

Kenya moves to resolve visa row with the UAE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 21 - President Mwai Kibaki has now ordered Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula to travel to Dubai and resolve the visa row between the two countries should the mission in Abu Dhabi not sort it out by Friday.

Mr Wetangula assured the country on Wednesday that he was in constant communication with United Arab Emirates officials and was working to have the new requirement for Kenyan visa applicants traveling there to possess degrees scrapped.

The Minister who spent hours in a meeting with the President earlier in the day said that in the last two days he had secured the issuance of pending work permits for Kenyans and renewal of those that had expired.

“I want to give an assurance that Kenyans who work in Dubai are under no threat of losing their jobs. Our mission in Abu Dhabi has been following the matter very successfully,” he said.

The new requirement is a retaliatory move by the United Arab Emirates after Kenyan authorities arrested and deported four of its citizens on suspicion of being terrorists. There were reports that some of the suspects arrested were from a royal family in the UAE.

“I don’t want to call this a crisis as it has been referred. It is an incident borne out of another incident which we have overcome by now and we want to move on into the future,” Mr Wetangula said.

It is estimated that over 36,000 Kenyans work in Dubai in the hospitality and construction industries. Thousands others frequent the free port city on business trips. Since the introduction of the new rules dozens of business people have been denied visas to travel there.

Many Kenyans pass through the country while heading to other parts of the world.The Minister confirmed that in the last two weeks two ministers and dozens of Members of Parliament had also been denied visas.

The business people especially in the textile industry have complained that they are losing millions of shillings in the crisis.

“For the business people who travel regularly I can only give you an assurance that the matter is in the hands of government and our counterparts across the Red Sea are fully committed to a very sound relationship between us.”

New UAE visa regulation for Kenyans

A new visa regulation set by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) requires citizens from Kenya to have at least a bachelor's degree to travel into the Arab country. 

According to the new regulation, even Kenyan transit passengers will be detained at UAE airports if they fail to prove that they have at least a bachelor's degree. 

"It is unfair for the Dubai government to punish all Kenyans over this misunderstanding," the chairman of Parliament's departmental committee on Foreign Relations and Defense, Aden Keynan, said on Tuesday.

"Mr Wetang'ula and his team must be proactive in their dealings with such crucial trade partners so that such hitches do not occur,” he added. 

The UAE's new visa regulation took effect just four days after the UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah al-Nahayan met with Kenya's high-ranking officials, including the Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and the country's Foreign Minister Moses Wetang'ula. 

The exact reasons for the new move are still unknown. However, Mr. Keynan said it was in response to the deportation of UAE nationals touring Kenya. 

About 36,000 Kenyans are currently in Dubai for work and business purposes while others use the Arab state as a transit route to other Middle East countries.