Tanzania President, Samia Suluhu Hassan, asked her Kenyan counterpart, Uhuru Kenyatta, for a favour after the two held trade talks at State House, Dar es Salaam on Friday, December 10.
Suluhu started off by gifting Uhuru 20 exotic Korongo birds (Heron) as Christmas presents, reiterating Kenya and Tanzania’s long found union and partnership in tourism, energy, border protection and the health sectors.
In return, she requested Uhuru to let Tanzania rhinos marry those in Kenyan’s as her country has only two male rhinos with no partners.
“I am happy to hand over the certificate of 20 birds to President Uhuru Kenyatta that will be flown to Kenyan parks. They will arrive before Christmas as a holiday gift from Tanzania.
"But I also took the opportunity to tell him (President Uhuru) that my parks in Ngorongoro and Serengeti have two male rhinos only, with no partners. I told him it would not be wrong if our rhinos marry in Kenya,” Samia stated to the cheers of the audience at State House, Dar es Salaam.
She added that Uhuru accepted her request and even alluded to holding a wedding celebration, cake cutting ceremony and reception to celebrate the marriage.
Samia further stated that the two countries shared the same ecology in the tourism sector but were only divided by borders. She urged her ministers to reach out to their Kenyan counterparts to remove roadblocks barring the two countries from working together to promote tourism.
The two leaders also signed eight bilateral pacts on the last day of Uhuru’s two-day state visit. The bilateral pacts included agreements on mutual legal assistance, extradition and transfer of sentenced persons as well as memoranda of understanding (MoUs) on immigration, correctional services and animal health.
Others were MoUs on cooperation between Kenya Investment Authority and Tanzania Investment Centre as well as housing and urban development.
“We have had an opportunity to hold bilateral talks on issues concerning our two nations and agreed to work closely to foster our relations so as to attain our shared vision for prosperity of our people.
“As leaders, I am pretty sure if we continue playing our role then the benefits accrued from economic activities will support the development of both countries,” Uhuru stated.
He added that the newly signed agreements will help spur economic prosperity as well as assist in cementing bilateral ties between Kenya and Tanzania.
“In our talks, we discussed how our countries depend on each other. Our ecosystems are intertwined and hence it does not benefit us to be closing our borders but rather we need to continue engaging on how to resolve issues that hinder our citizens from conducting their businesses and interacting with each other,” Uhuru urged.
