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Kenya has lodged a diplomatic protest to Tanzania after Kenya’s Energy Cabinet Secretary Charles Keter was denied entry to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania on Wednesday.
The Kenyan minister and his delegation tried to enter the Tanga port area without invitation on Wednesday, leading to Tanzanian officials denying him access to the harbour, as a dispute over the route of a proposed oil pipeline from Uganda to the Indian Ocean continues to strain relations between Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.
Keter and his team were accompanying an official delegation from Uganda, led by that country’s energy and minerals development minister Irene Muloni, who were on a scheduled visit to the port arranged beforehand by authorities in Dar es Salaam.
However, the local officials denied the Kenyan delegation entry to the port after it emerged that they were not on the official list of invited visitors.
Confirming this, Tanga regional commissioner Martin Shigella said: “We were only notified about the Ugandan minister’s visit to the port. The Kenyans were not on the official list of accompanying delegates that we received from the (Tanzanian) Ministry of Energy and Minerals.”
