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{
    "id": 1237618,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1237618/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 381,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Emuhaya, ANC",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Omboko Milemba",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "They later on created the Organisation of African Union, which unfortunately did not pick up very strongly. I long for those days when we had the A-Level system of education and in history, we would get a question of 50 marks stating that the Organisation of African Union is a dog that is sleeping without teeth to bite. Later on, the creation of the Pan African Parliament was supposed to bring the African member states to a level of having a stronger negotiating voice with other continents and powers not only limited to rights which I have seen as a recommendation but also economic decisions like trading rights, economic blocs, currency and other things that would make the continent very strong. I think the trials by the late Libyan leader to form the African Union was a very serious step to try and strengthen Pan-Africanism. Therefore, I welcome PAP but it has a lot to do in terms of making Africa to be a strong bloc. Somewhere in this Report, I realised the Committee had a feeling that to strengthen this Parliament, we possibly need to have representatives who sit in the regional bloc like the East African Legislative Assembly based in Arusha, as Members of Pan African Parliament. That would completely lose the spirit of the Pan African Parliament as intended from the history of Pan-Africanism. The Pan African Parliament is supposed to have representation from the member states, and if there are regional issues that need to be negotiated, they can network among the member states like the eastern region – those Member States in the East African Community, or for economic matters, the economic body that we used to call the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in West Africa could do the same through their own regional body. So, they would network within their regional body so that they have their point firmly put in place. Let representation come from each member state because that is where the Pan African Parliament sits and is respected as a Parliament sitting for African nations not with regional representation but as member states representing the interests of their countries. I wish to reiterate that it is very important that the representation is directly from the member states."
}