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{
    "id": 104641,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/104641/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 666,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the question of attaches generally, it is not my policy. This is a matter that was decided by the Cabinet; that we must multi-skill and withdraw attaches. Tell me today, if you send an agricultural attaché to London, what does he do? Look at the missions representing their countries in Nairobi – apart from one or two, each of those missions’ trade and commercial attaches are Kenyans; they are not called attaches but commercial officers. If you pick - as we used to do in the days of abuse – a trade licensing officer from Sirisia and you post him to Russia as a commercial attaché, he does not know the language, he does not know where to start and he does not even know what business we have with Russia, is that how we want to run our country? I have instructed our missions that they have a free hand to hire local staff to help develop trade and commerce. If Germany is our source of tourists, as it is, our mission in Germany must recruit Germans who can recruit German tourists to come to Kenya! But if we send a Kenyan there, he will spend two years learning German, another one year trying to find the names of streets, how will he help this country? I want to urge my Committee to appreciate what we are doing. We can actually run all our mission accounts from Nairobi and post to the embassies. Instead of posting accountants, I have a trial run. Today, Rwanda and Burundi share one accountant and I have saved the country Kshs25 million every year. That is what it costs to keep one accountant in one station with his family. I have now instructed that Los Angeles, Washington, New York and Ottawa are going to have one accountant based in one optimal centre. I am going to save the country Kshs25 million times four. That is what I am doing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are engaged in very serious economic diplomacy. Only last December, we had the Kenyan week in Dubai. You cannot believe it from the time I was appointed Minister, there were about 10,000 Kenyans working in Dubai but today, there are 36,000 Kenyans working in Dubai. I went there for the Kenyan week and you could have seen the delight of Kenyans; that we are doing a good job for them. We are giving them consular services. What will Kenyans want when they are out there? When their passports expire, they are renewed. When they run into a problem, there is a Kenyan to listen to them. That is what we must do."
}