Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1461414,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1461414/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 207,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Seme, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) James Nyikal",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. I appreciate how far back we have gone when I listen to people. All the things we are recommending here and wishing to do were in the East African Community Treaty. Some of us do not even know why this region is called ‘Community’. It was the headquarters for the East African Common Services Organisation and we had the same currency. I saw the East African Shilling. It was one. We had the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation. The railway, all the way from Gulu to Dar es Salaam, was one. We had the East African Airways. It was one. We had the University of East Africa. It was one. It had medicine in Makerere, law in Dar es Salaam, and engineering in Nairobi. That was how it was. There were research organisations. There was the East African Medical Research Council, with Leprosy in Alupe, research on Malaria in Tanzania, and research on tsetse fly in Tororo. We should be moving very fast. If you look at these recommendations, three and four are about taxes. They want us to harmonise our tax-free regimes. Number five is on non-tax tariffs. Then if you go to recommendations 4, 8 and 10, this is all civil aviation. This is for a place where you had one airway service, the East African Airways. I was supposed to train as a pilot after Form 4. I did the interview here, under the Community then I decided to go ahead. These things were actually there. We have the East African Framework for Support and Transfer of Credit among universities. It was one university. The vice-chancellors used to rotate. I think we should move fast. The Chairperson has been at the Community as a Member of Parliament. I may be wrong. I see improper things happening in the current East African Community. We feel like we are several countries jostling for resources instead of actually looking at all those countries as one so that we make things as one. I feel like an East African. We may not know that people used to move freely. You did not need anything. You could use a train ticket from Dar es Salaam to travel in a Kenya Bus in Nairobi. We should move as one and feel as one. Hon. Pukose was talking about registration of professionals. We did the Kenya Medical Association between 2000 and 2002. We had a meeting and decided to invite all Ministers of Health from the East African region. Prof. Sam Ongeri was our Minister. One of the things we agreed on was to have a reciprocal recognition of certificates. If you look at it, we exchanged lecturers during exams. You examined and passed students at Makerere. Why examine them again when they come to practise in Kenya? We should redo all these. I urge those of us who get to the Community and the East African Legislative Assembly to start thinking of one unit, not several countries jostling for resources and advantage. Just look at what the people need and do that for our people. With those remarks, I support the Report, particularly the recommendations."
}