The Tanzanian Ministry of Home Affairs has advised our local corespondents of the following  additional restrictions on the return of Tanzanian stowaways from abroad.

"Kindly be informed that owing to increasing incidents of some stowaways returned being nonTanzanian and thus putting us in a precarious situation we wish to stress the following:

(i) Whenever the stowaways due to be returned are in a group of more than five persons it will be mandatory for Immigration Officer(s) to do vetting at the point of departure, As usual the travel and accommodation costs of the officers will be borne by your companies at terms to be agreed upon between us.

(ii) When the returnees are less than five the questionnaire forms will be used after locating the relatives of the returnee. The Immigration Officers will ensure that the information extracted from the relatives are sufficient for purposes of verifying the authenticity of the returnees citizenship/nationality. this exercise will be done prior to the return of the stowaways."

This government decree was dated 28th July 1999 and the total effect of the new rules can only be guessed at in the short term. However it can be assumed that it will result in delayed repatriation of Tanzanian stowaways, together with a substantial increase in related expenditure.

Source of information:

Robmarine Shipping Consultants Limited

UKP&I Club contact: Peter Jackson (L3)