EAC Citizens Thrilled to Use ID's At Border

Crossing borders of Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya by the nations' citizens is set to increase as the use of national identity cards and other agreed national documents, including voter's card and student's identity cards, came into force yesterday. The project, to be implemented under a tripartite arrangement, was agreed upon during a summit between the three Heads of State in Uganda in June last year. The leaders agreed to establish a single tourist visa, a single customs territory-launched last year-as well as fast track a joint railway line project, oil pipeline, and adopt national identity cards as travel documents. The ID initiative is meant to facilitate free movement of people within the region as stipulated in the East African Common Market protocol, the second stage of the integration process. A spot visit of the Rwanda-Uganda borders at Gatuna by The New Times showed that the rollout of the new initiative was long over due. Although it was New Year's public holiday, lines formed at the migration offices with several Rwandans using their identity cards to cross to Uganda. The same scenario transpired on Ugandan side of the border. "I'm going to Kabale District in Uganda to visit my friends. I just heard that today people will start crossing the border with identity cards; I don't have a passport so I had to utilise this opportunity," Theoneste Ndindiriyimana, from Gicumbi District, said at Gatuna border. Boniface Tumwijukye, a Ugandan from Ntungamo District, who crossed to Rwanda using his ID, said it would serve citizens more if the project was extended to Burundi and Tanzania as well. "I'm going to Cyangugu for adult English teaching; it's a good process because you don't have to spend much time at the border. However, to make it fully beneficial it needs to be extended to other countries to help us move in all East African countries freely," the teacher said. Currently, only Rwandans and Kenyans have national identity cards, meaning Ugandans will be using voter's cards until the country issues IDs to its citizens. At Kigali International Airport, all systems were set to receive Kenyans and Ugandans using identity cards or voter's cards as travel documents and also to allow Rwandans flying out to the two destinations to use the same document. However, by the time this paper visited the immigration offices at the airport, (at around 5pm) there had not been a single traveller who had used the new system. But the officer in charge of immigration at the airport, Charles Nkubito, confirmed that all systems were set and immigration staff notified on the new procedures. "The security staff and other personnel are well aware of the new system and will allow Rwandans to check in with their identity cards and also to receive Kenyan and Ugandan visitors using the arrangement. But most of our travellers are still using passports," he said.