Stop Press – Breaking News – Kenya Airways mercy flight to Tripoli underway

KENYA AIRWAYS COMES TO THE RESCUE OF EAST AFRICANS IN LIBYA

Information just received gives an update of the planned Kenya Airways evacuation flight, operated on a wide body B767-300 from Nairobi via Cairo to Tripoli this afternoon.

The Libyan Civil Aviation Authority eventually did grant a landing permit on humanitarian grounds, as the aircraft was already sitting at Cairo’s International Airport working out the final logistics. As many as 68 Kenyan citizens will be airlifted back home and the remainder of the seats has been given to nationals of Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Congo DR. South African and Lesotho nationals, plus a few from Sierra Leone in West Africa, will also fly to safety, leaving the present chaotic circumstances of fighting, looting and a general breakdown in law and order behind.

Kenya Airways did confirm that the aircraft will be operated with a crew of 11, an extra engineer in case of technical issues arising – this is a standard precaution when operating such a flight, and will take a total of 191 passengers on board. As this operation goes underway we wish Kenya Airways, and all the crew and passengers God’s Speed, safe landings and a happy reunion with their distraught families in Kenya and the region.

Kenya Airways has been working to put this special flight operation into action over the past days but communication and other factors have delayed the flight until this afternoon.

KQ has to be commended for their extraordinary effort, to coordinate the rescue mission with the diplomatic representatives in Nairobi and Tripoli of the countries whose citizens are being flown out of Libya today, fully living up to their other name ‘the Pride of Africa’ – hence a big Asante Sana to KQ!

News Update – Kenya keeps Visa fee low

SMART MOVE KEEPS KENYAN VISA FEES AT 25 USD

The Kenyan government, according to a well placed source in Nairobi, is set to keep the fees for a tourist Visa at 25 US Dollars per person, and will only review this by July 2011. The savings, for instance for a family of four, runs into 100 US Dollars, money tourists then spend in restaurants, curio shops or on excursions, spreading money directly into the Kenyan economy rather than collecting it at entry and being kept by government.

The other East African countries other than Rwanda, where notably many nationalities are exempt from paying for Visa – thus contributing to the fast rising demand for tourism in this country in recent years – continue to charge 50 US Dollars, making holidays there more expensive.

The long advocated for common East African Visa has still not gone beyond the planning stages, a pathetic state of affairs considering the idea was floated [incidentally by this correspondent] at an EAC Committee meeting on tourism and wildlife back in 2002 and been ‘welcomed’ – not too welcome though for some who continue to delay and obstruct this crucial element in making tourist visits to the entire region ‘easier and cheaper’.

It has also been ascertained that both envy as well as anger is extended towards Kenya over this decision by her neighbours, where in particular immigration officials talk of ‘undercutting’ instead of considering joining hands in lowering ‘entrance fees’ in line with Kenya and finally agreeing on a common Visa and its administration.

But until at least July it is ‘Karibuni Kenya’ at ‘half the entrance fee’.

Breaking News – Uganda habituating two more gorilla groups in Bwindi

MORE HABITUATED GORILLA GROUPS TO ‘COME ON LINE’ BY MID 2011

Information was received from a regular source at the Uganda Wildlife Authority that the habituation of two more groups of mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park is in its final stages. Hence, later this year a further 16 permits for gorilla tracking will be available on the market, satisfying at least some of the seemingly ever growing demand by tourists to see the prized animals. The source pointed out that as early as mid year the two group could be gradually opened up for tracking, a deliberately long and careful process to make sure no harm comes to the animals and their natural behaviour is not being disturbed or in a worst case scenario altered altogether.

The introduction of the two new groups, to be named ‘Kahugye’ and ‘Oruzogo’, will bring the total number of habituated gorilla families and clans to 10, although one is set aside for pure research and monitoring purposes and not available for visits by ordinary tourists.

Presently the cost of a day’s tracking of gorillas is at US Dollars 500 per person, plus overnight, transport and related expenses that is, and charged uniformly also in Rwanda and Congo DR following extensive cooperation agreements between the wildlife managers in the three countries.

This figure however is understood to be under review, having been in place for two years now, but none would comment on the progress of internal and external consultations over a future rise. Uganda’s earnings from tourism have grown inspite of the difficult economic environment in recent years and gorilla tracking is the biggest single tourism activity in terms of revenues and global recognition. The Uganda Tourist Board is however working hard to portray the country also as a general adventure destination, considering the attractions along the upper Nile valley below Jinja, where white water rafting, quadding, horseback riding, bungee jumping, boating and cross country cycling are just a few of the activities waiting for tourist visitors. Uganda also has a dozen other primates to see, like chimpanzees, the golden monkey, colobus species and is blessed too with over 1.000 species of birds, over 600 of which are found in Queen Elizabeth National Park alone.

No empty words then calling Uganda ‘The Pearl of Africa’ or ‘Gifted By Nature’. Come visit, if not in person at least via www.visituganda.com or www.ugandawildlife.org

Breaking News – UWA makes more bad headlines

UWA BACK IN ‘BADLINES’

More headlines emerged this weekend, when the Daily Monitor made further sweeping allegations about the state of affairs at Uganda Wildlife Authority and blamed the tourism minister Kahinda Otafiire – aka Minister for Crocodiles by his own words – for usurping executive powers in contravention of the existing law. The newspaper reportedly obtained a copy of a letter from the minister, redeploying staff of UWA, a function to be handled by management of UWA or the Executive Director himself.

Following a decision by the High Court in Kampala which dismissed his erstwhile, and hugely controversial board appointments, including of the chairperson, last year, no new board has been appointed as yet, and as the law says, in the absence of a substantive board the minister ‘is the board’. However, the boards functions are also clearly limited and do  not include executive functions, which the former chairperson, a Dr. Muballe forgot to his own regret. Dismissed by court he had taken it upon him to become ‘Executive Chairman’ which is not foreseen in the Wildlife Act and hence led to his dismissal, after first however generously multiplying his financial benefits during his short lived term of office, and that of his fellow board members.

It was in particular the minister’s recent appointments of staff into senior acting positions which caught the eye of the media and promptly brought the organization back into the public spotlight, as other staff in regular contact with this correspondent immediately talked of favouritism and a hidden agenda by the minister in conjunction with staff at his ministry, who appear to try and exploit the vacuum at UWA to re-write the book on the cash rich semi-autonomous body. According to the paper the minister is now drawing funds for fuel from UWA, as do other senior ministry officials apparently, in contravention of the Wildlife Act, citing claims of not receiving funds from the Ministry of Finance. This development has also brought development partners back into the fray, who expressed their growing concern over ‘their’ money given for specific projects and purposes and how it is being safeguarded. One particular source connected with the World Bank – the biggest financier of UWA’s activities in past years claimed under strict assurance of anonymity that ‘it seems after the first scheme with the short-lived board failed to get hands on the UWA finances a fresh attempt is now being made to realign oversight and control’.

To add to the melee at UWA it also now appears that a more recent Acting Executive Director, appointed by the former board, is himself now under suspension. First being relegated back into albeit senior management ranks Mr. Kamazi now joins a host of other UWA management executives on suspension from where he, as the others before him successfully did, may well also go to court, citing the alleged illegalities of current actions taken by the minister.

Be it as it may, the sheen is now definitely off UWA, once a shining example what committed management and an enlightened board can achieve – they turned it into a cash cow rarely seen in public institutions – but then became the envy of a few who seemingly also tried to ‘reap where they did not sow’. Development partners and donors have already quietly said that unless the mess at UWA is resolved once and for all, best by bringing senior conservation stakeholders with impeccable credentials back on to a new board, they would most likely reconsider their financial commitments and options to avoid their funding being misused, misappropriated and squandered.

In closing, the forthcoming appointment of a new cabinet, following President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s massive election win – which also returned the NRM as the party with the highest number of members of parliament – is now the focus of hope for conservationists who expressed their desire to see a new and more enlightened minister appointed to the tourism, trade and industry portfolio, where two state ministers, those for tourism and for trade in any case lost their seats and will not likely make a return into government after failing to return to parliament in the first place. Watch this space.