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Congolese doctors represented by lawyer Danstan Omari sue Health Cabinet
\nSecretary Aden Duale over license row at Milimani Courts, Nairobi on January
\n12 \/LEAH MUKANGAI<\/p>\n
Congolese doctors represented by lawyer Danstan Omari sue Health Cabinet
\nSecretary Aden Duale over license row at Milimani Courts, Nairobi on January
\n12 \/LEAH MUKANGAI<\/p>\n
A legal battle where Congolese doctors working in Kenya have sued Health
\nCS, Aden Duale, for refusing to renew their work permits has exposed limitations
\nof East Africa\u2019s common market protocol. <\/p>\n
In an
\napplication filed on Monday, January 12, under a certificate of urgency by
\nlawyer Danstan Omari, the doctors have termed the move by\u00a0the Ministry as arbitrary and discriminatory.<\/p>\n
Omari argues that the doctors were members of the East African
\ncommunity, yet they were denied license renewal even after Duale reaffirmed
\nthat members of the EAC would not be affected by the move to ban foreign
\ndoctors.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is very
\ncategorical that all doctors from the East African community will be offered
\nemployment. That statement is not true. Congolese doctors have not been allowed
\nto renew their licences,\u201d Omari stated.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, regional trade experts faulted the Ministry of Health for
\nwhat they termed as \u2018open bias\u2019 against bona fide members of EAC,
\ncontradicting Kenya\u2019s efforts to push for regional integration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Democratic
\nRepublic of Congo (DRC) is a member of EAC, with its citizens entitled to
\nbenefits enshrined in the common market protocol. Those doctors deserve permits
\nto work in Kenya as long as they meet regulatory approvals,\u2019\u2019 Dave Ndegwa, Pan
\nAfrican trade crusader, told the Star.<\/p>\n
He added that the move by CS Duale pours cold water on Kenya\u2019s commitment
\nto the free labour movement within the region after unveiling Class R permits early
\nlast year.<\/p>\n
Signed in 2009, the common market protocol agreement between member
\nstates sought to remove barriers to the mobility of people, capital and other
\nresources, creating a single market where all factors of production move
\nfreely within the region.<\/p>\n
Even so, Jerome Omondi, a former adviser at the East Africa Business
\nCommunity (EABC), says that DRC and Somalia are late to the party.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time I checked, Kenya\u2019s Class R Permit for citizens of EAC
\npartner states is limited to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi,
\nTanzania, and South Sudan. Let us wait for judicial interpretation,\u2019\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although Kenya and DRC have had perennial diplomatic spats, the two
\ncountries are major trade partners, especially after they both became members of
\nEAC.<\/p>\n
The investment profile, 2025, by the Kenya Investment Authority
\n(KenInvest) and Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that Kenyan
\ninvestors injected at least Sh100 billion into DRC in 2022, the year the
\ncountry joined the EAC bloc.<\/p>\n
Even so, in 2023, DRC recalled its Ambassadors to Kenya and Tanzania,
\naccusing Nairobi of interfering with its internal affairs.<\/p>\n
Kinshasa was furious that Kenya had hosted a Congolese opposition figure
\nwho allied with rebels in the country\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n
The envoy to Tanzania was
\nrecalled because Tanzania hosts the headquarters of the East African Community
\nbloc, to which the DRC also belongs.<\/p>\n
The two nations have
\nsince mended ties, with Kenyan businesses reporting huge profits in the
\ncountry, led by the banking sector.\u00a0According to the
\nfinancial results for KCB and Equity Bank, Kenya\u2019s leading lenders, DRC subsidiaries
\ncontributed heavily to their profitability in the first nine months of 2025.<\/p>\n
In 2022, KCB acquired a controlling stake in the DRC-based lender TMB, while Equity Bank had earlier acquired a\u00a0shareholding in Banque
\nCommerciale du Congo (BCDC) from the family of businessman George Arthur
\nForrest and merged it with Equity Bank Congo (EBC) to form a new bank, Equity
\nBCDC.<\/p>\n
According to KCB\u2019s
\nfinancial results, its subsidiary in DRC accounts for almost half of its earnings
\naway of Kenya. <\/p>\n
Equity Bank\u2019s Profit
\nafter Tax in DRC increased by 21 per cent to Sh13.8 billion, up from Sh11.4
\nbillion in Q3, 2025.<\/p>\n
Loans and advances increased by 19 percent to Sh302.7 billion, up from Sh253.5 billion, while cash holdings declined by a corresponding amount from Sh275 billion to Sh259.3 billion.<\/p>\n
Total equity rose by 28per
\ncent to Sh88.8 billion, up from Sh69.4 billion.<\/p>\n
The East Africa
\nCommunity Secretariat has blamed the lack of harmonisation of mutual
\nrecognition of professionals, failure to abolish work permits and implement the
\nEAC trade dispute remedies as stumbling blocks to regional integration.<\/p>\n
Others are: liberalisation of air transport services, harmonisation of domestic taxes, and
\nelimination of long-standing non-tariff barriers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, the Kenyan government protested to the EAC Secretariat after Tanzania banned non-citizens from engaging in various business activities, warning that the move threatened economic integration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kenya asked the regional trading body to compel Tanzania to
\nreview the Business Licensing (Prohibition of Business Activities for
\nNon-Citizens) Order, 2025.<\/p>\n
The order restricted foreigners from engaging in 15 categories
\nof business, imposing hefty penalties, including fines of no less than TSh10
\nmillion (Sh501 584), imprisonment for up to six months, and cancellation of
\nvisas and residency permits.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Congolese doctors represented by lawyer Danstan Omari sue Health Cabinet
Secretary Aden Duale over license row at Milimani…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[80,351,352,98,100,353,101,350,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-24358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kenya","8":"tag-kenya","9":"tag-kenya-news","10":"tag-star","11":"tag-star-news","12":"tag-star-news-kenya","13":"tag-star-newspaper-kenya","14":"tag-the-star","15":"tag-the-star-kenya","16":"tag-the-star-newspaper"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}