What does it mean being an East African resident?

Being an East African resident means that you hold an East African Passport! For those foreigners who actually work in Tanzania though they hold a non-East African Passport but have a Tanzanian work permit fall under this category. However, this means that if you hold a Non-East African Passport but have a work permit for one of the countries in East African region you are not considered an East African region but rather a non-East African resident. When climbing Kilimanjaro East African residents pay less park fees than the non-East African residents.

Expatriates / Residents living in Tanzania

If you are an expatriate or a resident living and working in Tanzania, the park department discounts your conversation fees. There are no discounts on camping fees, hut fees or rescue fees. Conversation fees are reduced, no change in camping fees, no change in hut fees and no change in rescue fees

East Africa community these are countries including Rwanda Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda members of the East African Community (EAC). National identity cards The EAC treaty framework provides for all Partner States of the EAC to have a common form of national identity document. In line with this requirement, national identity cards are being upgraded to include biometric identification features in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi, and are being introduced for the first time in Uganda and Tanzania, as well as in South Sudan.

Although a national identity card is not usually formal proof of nationality, it functions as such for day to day purposes. Once an identity system is implemented, access to all government services, employment and benefits, financial services and employment in the formal economy, and ownership of real property typically depend on holding an identity card but some of them depend on that card confirming citizenship.

Given that identity card applications are usually treated in the first instance by quite low-ranking civil servants, this gives the power to determine someone’s right to proof of nationality for practical if not legal purposes to a person who is almost certainly not trained in nationality law, although doubtful cases are often referred to committees for approval. Complaints mechanisms may exist within the identity card management system for those whose applications are wrongfully rejected.

Efforts towards implementation of the Protocol

Efforts that have been made towards implementation of the Protocol include, inter alia: Issuance of EAC Passports, designing of a single Immigration entry/departure cards, harmonization of procedures of issuance of entry/work permits, issuance of Inter-state passes 9 implementation, issuance of Identity Cards to nationals by Uganda and Tanzania, border control manuals and the facilitation of EAC delegates across border.

East Africa has followed the Africa wide trend towards greater gender equality in nationality law. All the EAC countries, except for Burundi, provide for gender equality in transmission of nationality from parent to a child. Although the 2005 constitution of Burundi provides that both mothers and fathers have the same right to transmit nationality to their children, the nationality code of 2000 still restricts automatic attribution of nationality of origin to those born of a Burundian father, unless the child is born out of wedlock and not recognized by the father, although children born of a Burundian mother have the right to acquire nationality “by declaration”. A draft law to remove gender discrimination, among other aspects, has been prepared but is not yet before the Council of Ministers.

Tanzania, reflecting a rule derived from the jus soli regime of British law, restricts the transmission of citizenship outside the country: a national from birth who is born in the country can transmit his or her nationality to a foreign-born child, but that child cannot pass his or her nationality on to a child also born outside Tanzania. The child born abroad of a Tanzanian father who was also born abroad (i.e. the child of a father who is a “citizen by descent”) has easier access to naturalization, but the child born abroad of a mother who is a “citizen by descent”’ has no greater access than any other foreigner.

In line with the just so framework provided for citizenship to be attributed to those born in the country, the law does not explicitly provide for citizenship by descent in relation to the child of a citizen born in the country, although the interpretation applied by the authorities is for the child of a mother or father who is a citizen by birth to acquire citizenship wherever the child is born. Both South Sudan and Uganda provide rights to nationality that derive from a grandparent, and in the case of South Sudan, from a great-grandparent. Both, however, also create conditions for access to citizenship based on ethnicity.

A person is attributed South Sudanese citizenship whether born before or after independence, and whether or not the person him or herself was born in or outside of South Sudan if the person is a member of one of the “indigenous ethnic communities of South Sudan” (unlike in Uganda, these are not listed). In addition, however, there is the possibility of acquiring citizenship from an ancestor born in South Sudan (see above), while “A person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a South Sudanese National by birth if his or her father or mother was a South Sudanese National by birth or naturalization at the time of the birth of such a person.”24 Uganda’s constitutional provisions on citizenship are highly unusual in restricting transmission of citizenship from parent to child to parents who are citizens by birth, even in the case of a child born in the country.

A person is a citizen by birth whether born in or outside Uganda if one parent or grandparent was at the time of birth of that person a citizen of Uganda by birth; that is, people who acquired citizenship after birth (by registration or naturalization) cannot transmit citizenship to their children. The effect is that transmission of citizenship from parent to child is limited to members of the “indigenous communities” of Uganda listed in the third schedule to the constitution