The pain, inconvenience of 6-hour clearance at Entebbe

Starting Friday this week, the government bowed to pressure and allowed all incoming travellers go home after Covid-19  test at Entebbe  International Airport.

The international airport has been conducting mandatory Covid-19 testing since it reopened its runways in October last year. 

The measure was instituted to ensure no new variants of the virus enter the country. 
But the process has proven  messy and a big burden to the tourism industry, scaring  away most tourists. 

On September 18, this newspaper reported that the Covid-19 testing was causing 90 percent cancellations, with tour operators, urging the government to make changes. 

They cited other countries in the region that were doing it differently by clearing anyone who could prove they tested negative 72 hours before arrival into the  countries. 

A few days later, the government announced that private laboratories would be relieved of the responsibility and that the Health ministry would instead do the tests. But to date, the private laboratories still do the testing alongside the ministry. 

Worse, the inconvenience has not been eliminated, with many travellers that have gone through the process saying the test has nothing to do with prevention, but all about money. 

One frustrated traveler said he would rather they just ask for the money and let them go instead of subjecting them to hours of needless inconvenience and exhaustion. 
Some travellers even fear that the swabs don’t get to the laboratory. 

Several tour operators we talked to said their forums are littered with complaints from both tourists and tour operators. 
“I strongly doubt that they really analyze the swab. Remember, it is about money, not about real results or the safety of anyone,” one traveler texted a complaint to a tour operator.

The general perception is that the Covid-19 test at Entebbe is all “about money and not about real results or the safety of anyone.” 

One of the complaints is that the military personnel manning the process herd hundreds of travellers into confined spaces where no social distancing is observed. 

Tourists are allowed to be picked up by tour operators and taken to their hotels. Regrettably, returning nationals have to wait for up to eight hours for their results. 

The current arrangement for tourists is that they will receive their results by email from the comfort of their hotels. 
But tour operators have found challenges with this too, causing further mistrust that the tests are actually not being done. 

“We had arrivals Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and none of these arrivals got them [results] on SMS, mail or WhatsApp. The tour guide had to go and collect them at the airport, carrying guests’ passport copies. Indeed, this all bites into profits,” Hassan Pirani, a tour operator based at Muyenga,  a Kampala City Suburb says. 
“Is there no contact number that can be called again and again and again? Who will recover all the costs for going back to the airport to pick up results that they promised to send by email?”

A tour operator texted in a WhatsApp group, “The entire airport is militarised. But also the military belongs to the barracks or where there is war, not at a peaceful entry point of the country. Their sight freaks out many people. Or at least let them dress up in civilian-friendly attire.”

“The military guys couldn’t allow the guides to park at the VIP area. They wanted the guide to give them money, until he spoke to their boss who then prevailed over them.”
Industry players say the tourists also complain there is no Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) desk at the airport to go to for help. 

Bad image
Mr Amos Wekesa, the proprietor of Great Lakes Safaris and Uganda Lodges, believes that Uganda’s competition in tourism are smiling to the bank because of how the Covid-19 testing has been handled at Entebbe. He believes the little progress made around June has been erased.  

“If I am a tourist and I know I have been vaccinated, and I have also already tested negative, I’d rather go to Kenya where I will be let in without a hustle, instead of coming to Uganda where they will start poking my nose. And that is the situation at Entebbe,” Mr Wekesa says. 

He says for a country that doesn’t market itself as well as its competition, the least that it can do is to make coming here more attractive for tourists. But that is far from the case.  A tour operator who drove to Entebbe airport to pick up clients, said: “My clients landed at 3.30am, but up to now, 7.36am, I’m still waiting [for them]. They arrived at 3.30am, samples were taken at 4.30am. So they’re in the fourth hour. What a fiasco! Clients are now complaining.”

Another said:  “My customers arrived on Brussels at 10.20pm, samples taken at 11.30pm, but left the airport at 1.40am. Funny that they did walk outside to the taxis, but they did not see our driver. So when they went inside to access Wi-Fi, they were kept there and could not get outside again.”

And yet another narrated:  “Dispatch of results remain a major stumbling block. Swab was taken at 2.30pm and up to now (8.15 pm) - no results have been released on SMS, WhatsApp or mail. Rather nerve-wracking for guests.

Eighteen hours later still no results due to no network and lack of communication as to where to go and pick up the results.”

Experiences at Entebbe International Airport

A personal experience
My friends and I were at Entebbe Airport on Sunday, October 31, to pick up a friend returning from Germany. 
Our friend’s flight landed at 1.30pm, but we didn’t get to see him until 3.30pm. But this was only the beginning of a long wait. 

At 3.30am we saw our friend coming out of the arrivals section. This area is well set up with comfortable seats for the waiting family members, friends and tour operators.  While we thought our long wait was over, our friend was instead headed to the bank in another part of the airport, to pay for the test he had just received. 

We were told to move and wait in the second waiting area. This was in the airport parking lot with no shelter from the elements or chairs to rest on.

 One had to wait in the sun or rain until the traveller gets his or her results. 
At 6.30pm after waiting for over six hours, our friend emerged out of the airport, flustered, and almost out of breath. 
He narrates his experience.

A traveller’s stress at Entebbe
‘‘My flight arrived at Entebbe at 1.30pm and I was surprised to find the immigration area blocked off. So instead of heading to the immigration section  from the tarmac, the military led us to a tent near the runways. Here, I told them I had done a PCR test in Germany, 72 hours before arriving at Entebbe. 

‘‘My hope was that they would check my negative results and let me go. But they said they don’t trust the test in Germany and that would proceed to do their own. I was one of the people to get my swab taken first. It too about 20 minutes to fill the form and have the swab taken.

From here we were taken to the immigration area through a longer route as the usual entrance was blocked. We queued up for about 40 minutes for the immigration process and another 40 minutes in another line for the luggage to be checked. 

‘‘We emerged from the arrivals section and walked to another section of the airport with a branch of Post Bank. There, hundreds and hundreds of travellers huddled in the banking hall, which was quite worrying as there was no social distancing. If any of those people had Covid-19, then we are all infected now. The biggest issue here were the military men giving one directive while the airport staff gave another. This disorganised the queue, creating four to be served by just one teller. 

‘‘It took me about 2 hours to get to the till. I paid my $30 and stood waiting for my results. I was hoping to be one of the first to get my results as I was one of the first to have my swab taken. But I became one of the last people to get my results.

‘‘It took me about an hour of standing around to get my results after the payment.”

As told by Roland Shcopf, 84, who has been living in Uganda since 1965.

Recommendations
Mr Amos Wekesa, the proprietor of Great Lakes Safaris and Uganda Lodges, recommends the following:
If one has already had a Covid jab and tested 72 hours prior to arrival, the person should be let  in without a hustle (96 hours Kenya). 

If one has had one Covid-19 jab and also tested negative 72 hours prior to arrival, they should get the antigen test, which is a confirmatory.

If one has had no Covid-19 jab and no test before arriving, then they can go through the PCR test.