Rwandans wishing to travel to Kenya will no longer be subjected to the usual tedious exercise of filling Visa application forms, Sunday Times has learnt. Kenyan ambassador to Rwanda Alex Keter said on Saturday the Visa application forms were no longer necessary after Rwanda joined the Eastern Africa Community bloc.

On June 18, 2007 Rwanda signed the Treaty of Accession into the East African Community. The enlarged regional economic bloc now has a combined population of 115 million.

"It’s no longer an obligation to fill these forms. We withdrew the Visa application forms early this month,” Keter said in a telephone interview.

Government officials in Kigali have welcomed the development describing it as a positive gesture.

The Director General of Immigration and Emigration Department, Anaclet Kalibata, said on Saturday that many travellers would spend hours at board points or the airport filling the forms.

"Now everything will be faster and we thank the government of Kenya for its positive response,” Kalibata said on phone.

A Rwandan businessman who frequently travels to Nairobi to buy merchandise welcomed the development, saying the move will now ease business activities between the two countries.

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