Warning about passport problems in Tanzania

Hello,

I just thought I should post a warning, resulting from an experience I had last week.

I was crossing the Uganda/Tanzania border by road at Mutukula, and was refused entry into Tanzania.

I was travelling on a South African temporary passport (legally identical to a permanent passport). My Tanzanian visa was perfectly valid. The immigration official claimed that the passport was invalid because it did not contain the words 'This passport is valid for travel to all countries, unless otherwise endorsed' Similar temporary passports have taken me to Angola, Germany, Switzerland, Malta, Libya, Lesotho, and Uganda without any hassles. I think the Tanzanian are just full of it

I politely argued that South Africans had no travel restrictions on travel, but they wouldn't buy it. I had to turn around and re-enter Uganda.

Happy travels, Marc - Johannesburg, South Africa

Marc,

interesting! In my experience in various countries in Africa these 'officials' are only angling for money. They look for anything that might be slightly wrong with your credentials or invent very strange new rules, like in your example, to make life difficult for anybody who depends on their goodwill. But the purpose is only to get money. If you have no other choice, you have to give in and pay up.

Of course there may be the occasional one that's gone completely crazy or a higher-up official somewhere in government making up funny new rules. But even then the lower ranks will use those for making money.

I don't know the current corruption status in Tanzania, but it wouldn't surprise me if corruption were rampant.

You could have tried to go to a different border post if one was in reach.

There is certainly the possibility that this was corruption, but more likely the case of late is just the opposite. In order to overcome charges of corrpution, some officials in countries like Tanzania have gone to the strictest letter of the law.

Also, the issue of immigration, visas and welcoming of people into countries is to some degree 'quid pro quo.' Many African nationals, and these days especially East Africans because of the links to the Embassy bombings of 1998, undergo great scrutiny from the moment they apply for their visa (if they even get the chance to apply) to the moment they leave the airport.

I am reminded of a trip I made with a group of Tanzanians to the USA a few years back. As an American, I went through the citizen queue and was completed in a few minutes. Almost an hour later, one of the group found me at the luggage hall and asked me to go back to immigration to sort out a problem.

It seemed that the Tanzanian passport office did not impress the seal over the photograph correctly and there was question that it was a valid passport. After my discussions and provided driver's licence and other forms of identification for the Tanzania, he was allowed to pass immigration only to be detained by the police just outside of immigration and harassed. Only after my intervention, demanding a supervisor, was the person released.

After 12 years of crossing back and forth between African boarders, that entry to New York, was perhaps the worst experience I have ever had with immigrations.

I do regret your experience, Marc. I hope the rest of your trip was great.

Best regards Gary