A group of B4FA fellows from Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda while
at Cambridge in Britain for a study tour last week. (Photo courtesy of
B4FA website).
Source : Daily News by FINNIGAN WA SIMBEYE
SAMSON Kamalamo, an editor with Changamoto weekly newspaper, Saidi Mmanga, a senior reporter with the same newspaper and Leonard Magomba, a bureau chief with Uganda based EastAfrica Business Week, got their UK visas in less than 48 hours over a week ago, thanks to their professional identification.
The trio together with Mwananchi Communication senior journalist, Leon Bahati and this writer, were heading to Cambridge in United Kingdom thanks to sponsorship by Biosciences for Farming in Africa (B4FA) Biosciences for Farming in Africa is a three year long philanthropic project funded by the Pennsylvania, US based John Templeton Foundation.
The project is run by staff based primarily at the University of Cambridge and involved a two years journalism fellowship with 160 scribes from four African countries, namely; Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.
“After they denied us visas for no good reasons, we decided to run a story so we sent questions to the British High Commission in Dar es Salaam,” said Mr Kamalamo, a camera shy soft spoken investigative editor behind much of Changamoto newspaper’s earth shaking stories.
Kamalamo, Mmanga and Bahati filled together the online visa application forms for UK during the first week of March ahead of the April 6 departure date.
Their interviews were also heard during the second week of March with scheduled visa released date pegged on March 24. Before the March 24, the two plus Mr Magomba who was also denied a visa for UK last year, received responses to their applications, no visas for them because of lack of reliable employment and fears that they may stall away in Britain.
Changamoto newspaper which is published by Ladyband Tanzania Limited, seems to be some little family based business which cannot afford to hire people and pay them decent salaries, according to Nairobi based visa processing officials. Magomba works for a much bigger media house which publishes EastAfrica Business Week, a direct rival of Nairobi based The EastAfrican weekly newspaper, in fact some senior staff at the Kampala based newspaper, were poached from Nation Media Group.
“We questioned ourselves as to why Bahati got the visa but I and Mmanga were denied despite the fact that the sponsor for our trip was the same and all of us had permanent jobs,” said Mmanga, an eloquent partying personality who finds a friend in everyone.
After sending their questions to the British High Commission in Dar es Salaam questioning the discrimination shown by visa processing officials in Nairobi, Kamalamo and Mmanga were surprised to receive calls from the HC both in Dar and Nairobi asking them to return their passports for visas.
“It was on a Friday morning and Sam was travelling on duty in Morogoro but when I told him the good news, he advised me where to get his passport and I surrendered them to the BHC in Dar,” said Mmanga.
It was Friday morning of April 4th, two days before the journey on April 6 that the passports were presented to BHC but they were back by Saturday afternoon with visas attached. For Magomba it was not so lucky because his visa was only made available on Monday morning, April 7, 2014 when the Cambridge final B4FA seminar started.
And that was after his newspaper published a story citing discrimination by Nairobi visa officers who seemed to target rival newspapers/media houses to their own.
“When I went to collect my visa on Monday, I was told that it was ready since March 31st . I wondered why I was not informed,” said Magomba, a tough talking high pitched voice editor for EABW newspaper.
Another good example is Uganda where out of seven B4FA fellows invited to London, three were denied visas and they came from News Vision, UBC Radio and Radio Sapienzia while two Monitor Group journalists and one from The EastAfrican newspaper, got their visas without much hassle.
Nation Media Group publishes The EastAfrican and has a stake at Monitor Group. The visa denied Ugandans were not so lucky to use power of their pens to influence decisions in Nairobi where nationalist sentiments and unfair business competition practices seems to be embedded in some senior officials with a say on visa issuance.
Lost luggage in Nairobi: Flight to and from London to Dar es Salaam were via Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi which is increasingly becoming a transit passengers’ baggage looting airport in East Africa.
From Dar es Salaam’s Julius Nyerere International Airport (aboard Precision Air which is partly owned by Kenya Airways, the B4FA fellows boarded British Airways jumbo jet in Nairobi and dropped at London’s Heathrow Airport, it all went well.
Trouble was on the return flight which arrived at JKIA in Nairobi at a few minutes to 10pm. In a surprise move which impressed many, KQ were kind enough to schedule a Bombardier direct flight to JNIA instead of Precision Air which would have gone via Kilimanjaro and taken two hours to reach Dar.
Upon arrival in Dar at about a few minutes past 11pm, most passengers from the BA 65 flight did not get their luggage, reason was that baggage was left in Nairobi and will be delivered at our places of domicile the next day, Sunday April 13, 2014.
It did not happen till Monday, April 14 and indeed in all the four B4FA scribes bags perfumes went missing. Swissport and Kenya Airways have promised to follow up on the matter probably after the Easter recess holiday is over.
SAMSON Kamalamo, an editor with Changamoto weekly newspaper, Saidi Mmanga, a senior reporter with the same newspaper and Leonard Magomba, a bureau chief with Uganda based EastAfrica Business Week, got their UK visas in less than 48 hours over a week ago, thanks to their professional identification.
The trio together with Mwananchi Communication senior journalist, Leon Bahati and this writer, were heading to Cambridge in United Kingdom thanks to sponsorship by Biosciences for Farming in Africa (B4FA) Biosciences for Farming in Africa is a three year long philanthropic project funded by the Pennsylvania, US based John Templeton Foundation.
The project is run by staff based primarily at the University of Cambridge and involved a two years journalism fellowship with 160 scribes from four African countries, namely; Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.
“After they denied us visas for no good reasons, we decided to run a story so we sent questions to the British High Commission in Dar es Salaam,” said Mr Kamalamo, a camera shy soft spoken investigative editor behind much of Changamoto newspaper’s earth shaking stories.
Kamalamo, Mmanga and Bahati filled together the online visa application forms for UK during the first week of March ahead of the April 6 departure date.
Their interviews were also heard during the second week of March with scheduled visa released date pegged on March 24. Before the March 24, the two plus Mr Magomba who was also denied a visa for UK last year, received responses to their applications, no visas for them because of lack of reliable employment and fears that they may stall away in Britain.
Changamoto newspaper which is published by Ladyband Tanzania Limited, seems to be some little family based business which cannot afford to hire people and pay them decent salaries, according to Nairobi based visa processing officials. Magomba works for a much bigger media house which publishes EastAfrica Business Week, a direct rival of Nairobi based The EastAfrican weekly newspaper, in fact some senior staff at the Kampala based newspaper, were poached from Nation Media Group.
“We questioned ourselves as to why Bahati got the visa but I and Mmanga were denied despite the fact that the sponsor for our trip was the same and all of us had permanent jobs,” said Mmanga, an eloquent partying personality who finds a friend in everyone.
After sending their questions to the British High Commission in Dar es Salaam questioning the discrimination shown by visa processing officials in Nairobi, Kamalamo and Mmanga were surprised to receive calls from the HC both in Dar and Nairobi asking them to return their passports for visas.
“It was on a Friday morning and Sam was travelling on duty in Morogoro but when I told him the good news, he advised me where to get his passport and I surrendered them to the BHC in Dar,” said Mmanga.
It was Friday morning of April 4th, two days before the journey on April 6 that the passports were presented to BHC but they were back by Saturday afternoon with visas attached. For Magomba it was not so lucky because his visa was only made available on Monday morning, April 7, 2014 when the Cambridge final B4FA seminar started.
And that was after his newspaper published a story citing discrimination by Nairobi visa officers who seemed to target rival newspapers/media houses to their own.
“When I went to collect my visa on Monday, I was told that it was ready since March 31st . I wondered why I was not informed,” said Magomba, a tough talking high pitched voice editor for EABW newspaper.
Another good example is Uganda where out of seven B4FA fellows invited to London, three were denied visas and they came from News Vision, UBC Radio and Radio Sapienzia while two Monitor Group journalists and one from The EastAfrican newspaper, got their visas without much hassle.
Nation Media Group publishes The EastAfrican and has a stake at Monitor Group. The visa denied Ugandans were not so lucky to use power of their pens to influence decisions in Nairobi where nationalist sentiments and unfair business competition practices seems to be embedded in some senior officials with a say on visa issuance.
Lost luggage in Nairobi: Flight to and from London to Dar es Salaam were via Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi which is increasingly becoming a transit passengers’ baggage looting airport in East Africa.
From Dar es Salaam’s Julius Nyerere International Airport (aboard Precision Air which is partly owned by Kenya Airways, the B4FA fellows boarded British Airways jumbo jet in Nairobi and dropped at London’s Heathrow Airport, it all went well.
Trouble was on the return flight which arrived at JKIA in Nairobi at a few minutes to 10pm. In a surprise move which impressed many, KQ were kind enough to schedule a Bombardier direct flight to JNIA instead of Precision Air which would have gone via Kilimanjaro and taken two hours to reach Dar.
Upon arrival in Dar at about a few minutes past 11pm, most passengers from the BA 65 flight did not get their luggage, reason was that baggage was left in Nairobi and will be delivered at our places of domicile the next day, Sunday April 13, 2014.
It did not happen till Monday, April 14 and indeed in all the four B4FA scribes bags perfumes went missing. Swissport and Kenya Airways have promised to follow up on the matter probably after the Easter recess holiday is over.
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