A group of tourism sector stakeholders on Thursday, November 6, 2025, staged a march from Uhuru Park to the Tourism Fund Offices along Valley Road, protesting against the introduction of new gateway charges at national parks.
The group opposed the charges introduced by the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, stating that they have affected their business operations.
As part of a new digital payment system for national park entry, the ministry introduced a gateway fee or transaction processing charge of between 5 and 8.5 percent.
In images and video obtained by Kenyans.co.ke, protesters were seen carrying placards with messages such as “Gateway to Greed? Close it,”, “Respect Court Rules “Stop New Park Fee Increase," among others.
One of the stakeholders asked the government to issue clarification on the payment, demanding to know whether the ministry, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), or eCitizen was in charge of the payments.
“We are going to the Cabinet Secretary today, but we understand they are out of the country. If the Principal Secretary is available, we will talk to them. If they doesn’t respond, we will go to Parliament. KWS is not taking the blame, so they are pushing it to eCitizen. So, the director of eCitizen needs to respond to this because they have not issued any report or communicated," a representative told the press.
Another protester said that the Ministry, KWS and eCitizen continue to blame each other for implementing the charges despite the court suspension.
"When you ask eCitizen, they say that Ministry of Tourism is the one that passes anything to do with eCitizen and is implementing what the ministry has requested."
"We want the ministry to say KWS, ministry, or eCitizen. The PS for eCitizen and Migration also needs to respond to this matter," he said.
The stakeholders also questioned why the new rates and gateway fees were still being charged on the eCitizen platforms when a court had suspended them temporarily in October 2025.
The court suspended the charges following a petition from the Kenya Tourism Federation (KTF), pending a final decision on November 25, 2025.
The fees are based on the Wildlife Conservation and Management (Access, Entry and Conservation) (Fees) Regulations 2025, approved by Parliament on September 25.
