Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 123707,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/123707/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 287,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Affey",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 381,
        "legal_name": "Mohammed Abdi Affey",
        "slug": "mohammed-affey"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to review the protocol that has established the Pan African Parliament. The African Union (AU) is a very important organization for us in Africa. Unfortunately, the AU has not been able to assert itself. One of the reasons why it has not been able to assert itself, particularly the legislative aspect is because the members are donated by member countries on short term engagements. They are Members of Parliament here. So, they go to South Africa and come back. If we had people who are dedicated to the cause of Africa and gave them full time engagement like we do in the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), so that they represent the aspirations of Africa and discuss crisis of Africa there full time. I think we would have achieved globally. As we all know, the European Parliament is not composed of parliamentarians donated by Parliament of UK and others. It is a European Parliament that sits full time. I think that is the vision we have for Africa. The vision we have is to see our own parliamentarians from Africa debating African issues. Too many things are now happening around Africa. We have the leader of the AU, President of Libya who has grand plans for Africa to an extent where he has enlisted the support of traditional elders in Africa. I saw the other day in Uganda, Kenya was represented by one Kamlesh Pattni as a lead traditional elder. So, you see how situations are happening when this Parliament is not aware of what is happening outside. I am sure that our Parliamentarians in PAP will be well advised to seek this kind of engagement. If the leader of the AU wants to engage the traditional leaders, I particularly have some from my own constituency. There are very many others. The process must be very clear, so that we do not get pretenders to the throne; people who just assume they are leaders, but, perhaps, then at home, they are not. But here they are, they have a session with the head of AU and leaders in Africa and yet, we do not know how these nominations happen. They come from our country, but we have no idea how they were selected. These are things I would plead with my colleagues to see how best they can interrogate and see those who represent the face of Africa to really do so. So, there is need to review the protocol."
}