This morning, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority held a media briefing on the status of remote piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) in Kenya. Here are the highlights.

For starters, you can download the current regulations here. They were promulgated on 6th October 2017.

Here are highlights from what KCAA’s Director General Captain Kibe shared.

I have tasked the RPAS Work Force to come up with a simple document that shows the fees one has to pay depending on the drone size they have, and intended use.

Our main concern is safety of persons, but paramount is security.

I acknowledge that the charges proposed are expensive, but they were created by the National Security Advisory Committee. They will however be up for review at a stakeholders forum together with the promulgated regulations in July 2018.

In the next few days, we will circulate a simplified fee structure for drone operations in Kenya.

Even though the current drone regulations were promulgated on 6th October 2017, as the body that sets laws in Kenya, Parliament still needs to ratify them.

The charges are high to deter people who intend to engage in acts of unlawful interference from having easy access to drone operations in Kenya.

We want to see how import and registration fees can be consolidated into one simple charge, and not two.

We have seen hundreds, if not thousands of drones operating in Kenya. These have been illegal until now. You now have 6 months to voluntarily come to KCAA and register your drone and we’ll tell you what you need to do to operate legally.

When you register a drone you already have, KCAA will not charge you import fees on it. All you’ll pay are the fees needed to operate it.

If you decide you won’t register and get caught flying one, the Police have been instructed to politely ask the operator if they have operation authority from KCAA. If you don’t have one, the Police could let you off with a warning, and ask you to register with KCAA, or arrest you and when charged in court, your fine could be Kshs2 million ($20,000) and or 6 months imprisonment.

If your drone was impounded by Customs, you can use the letter you were given to go claim it at Customs and there will be no storage or demurrage fees, but you will need to register it to be compliant.

We’re working to have an annual fee for regular users of drones instead of having them pay $200 for every single use. This will be reviewed in July 2018 at the planned stakeholders forum.

 

You can download an audio file of his remarks here.