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{
    "id": 134492,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/134492/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 349,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Musila",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Defence",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 94,
        "legal_name": "David Musila",
        "slug": "david-musila"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I stand here to second this Motion. Let me start by congratulating the Minister for Tourism for the work that he has done to put our tourism sector in the world map. He just told us about the awards that the various bodies of the Ministry have won, including himself. No wonder that even before hon. Balala became the Minister for Tourism, when he was Mayor for Mombasa, he had distinguished himself as an ambassador of tourism. I think this was really a right decision for His Excellency the President to appoint him as the Minister for Tourism. Having said that, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to decry the little amount of money that this Ministry has continued to be allocated by the Treasury over the years. Most of the countries where tourism is an income earner, governments give priority to those Ministries in terms of resource allocation. The Ministry of Tourism is one of the important sectors in our economy. It creates employment directly and indirectly in unprecedented numbers. I, therefore, call upon the Government, in future, to look at the Ministry of Tourism positively and give them sufficient funds for promotion of development. You heard the Minister say that he was allocated only 40 per cent of the money that he had requested. Having said that, I want to say that it is very important that the Ministry continues to diversify the tourism products. The Minister has enumerated the various areas but I think there is still work to be done as far as certain areas are concerned. For example, in terms of sports, Kenya is a world known country in sporting and I do not think this has been properly exploited. Golf Tourism is one of the most important sports where the high paying tourists can come and play golf here. I know of some golfers who have come to Kenya. However, if this country was promoted as a golfing destination, we would get more tourists. On conference tourism, Kenya is losing out to neighbouring countries as far as conference tourism is concerned. We have been let down very badly by the management of Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC). This monumental development for conferences has been run down for many years. I think it is high time that the Government invested more funds to put KICC into a world standard facility. As far as I am concerned, it is nowhere near an international conference center."
}