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{
    "id": 1315935,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1315935/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 149,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Beatrice Elachi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I support the team and, more importantly, to appreciate the Committee for the work they have done in considering the appointment of ambassadors and high commissioners. This is the most sensitive docket that we have, but sometimes forget about. I congratulate all those who went through the interviews and now are headed to different missions to serve Kenyans. I humbly ask them to go out there and make us proud and be our brand. You are the ones who carry the image of how Kenya is back home. Go and serve Kenyans. Right now, Kenyans face many challenges with some of the missions out there. We hope that the ambassadors will have a way of dealing with the challenges. Go and work well with your staff. You will find Kenyans who have been in the missions. Let us not find people writing back home that they are going through a lot of challenges because of a new high commissioner or ambassador. We have many challenges with rent in most of the missions. Parliament must relook and think through the issue. We need to ask ourselves how Uganda and Tanzania have survived. Tanzanians have survived by using their National Social Security Fund (NSSF) to buy property for their missions and the money meant for rent is paid back to NSSF. Kenya should be thinking about going through that route. You can imagine how we are struggling with the economy in this country. What about the missions out there? How are they surviving? As we go for benchmarking, we would want them to come to the airport to receive us, but do they have the resources? Are we giving them enough resources to do that? The best thing is to think of a way to make it sustainable by having our own mission buildings back home. The Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs must pay NSSF back. The same way we are doing affordable housing is the same way we should be thinking about our missions across the world. There are many opportunities. We must think of ways to export so that we can reduce our exchange rate to the dollar. The challenge of the spiking rate of the dollar can be dealt with by ensuring that we have exports. These ambassadors can champion what we can export out of our country to ensure that we start working on our economy. As I congratulate all of them, especially those I know, I want to tell them to remember to carry our flag high. Remember that Kenya is the hub of East Africa. Make it that hub. With those few remarks, Hon. Temporary Speaker, I beg to support."
}