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{
    "id": 1359047,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1359047/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 154,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kibwezi West, MCCP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Mwengi Mutuse",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "I am in support of the Report that has been tabled by Hon. Nelson Koech, the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Relations. The 27 nominees to the different positions of ambassadors, high commissioners and permanent representatives should be approved by this House. We must remember that Kenya enjoys a very good place in the international community. We have a very good footing in the international community and our image out there has been one of the impeccable images in Africa. The people who are appointed can only be expected to make our image better, not even to maintain what we have. Reading from the Report, because I did not have the privilege of listening to the nominees during their suitability appearance before the Committee, it appears that the Committee of this House is satisfied that the persons so nominated and vetted by this House have what it takes to take the image of this country forward. Hon. Temporary Speaker, it cannot also be lost to this House that diplomats are funded by taxpayers’ money. We pay them salaries, and they would be housed by taxpayers’ money. They will have offices, vehicles and residence. Part of the many privileges they enjoy is that their children will go to international schools. Their personal bills will be catered for by taxpayers’ money. Therefore, this House must be demanding as part of our oversight mandate that there must be results. The people being so appointed must also give results so that the money that we are expending can give value to the people of Kenya. My request is that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must give the diplomats, as they are being posted, specific targets so that every diplomat from the station where they are appointed can account for what they have brought to this country or what they have helped this country in their specific area of posting. Lastly as I sit, we have also many places in the world where Kenya does not have diplomatic foot print. Many of them are being coordinated by embassies that are far away and I would urge that the Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations urges the Government to increase the funding to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that we open more consulates and missions so that our footprint can be everywhere in the world. As I finish, it is a matter of public notoriety that many of these embassies are not properly funded. I sit in the Publics Accounts Committee and recently we went to our mission in Geneva. Geneva has an office and we congratulate the outgoing High Representative of Kenya to the WHO, the Former Cabinet Secretary, Hon. Eric Mailu, who hails from my constituency, because he was doing a good job there. But even as we do so, we realise from the audit reports a lot of these missions are complaining that they are not adequately funded and, therefore, they are not able to execute their mandate. We want to request that the Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations finds it necessary, as part of the budgeting role of that Committee for our missions, that when we send ambassadors there, they are also adequately resourced so that they are able to bring results back to the country. With those few remarks, I beg to support the Report and reiterate my earlier comment that the request by Hon. Pukose…"
}