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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Medical Services",
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, may I first take this opportunity to congratulate the Leader of the Delegation, Prof. Kamar, together with all the members of the delegation for doing us proud. I wish to thank them for taking time to attend this meeting during a time when the whole country was in a difficulty. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would also want to congratulate the Speaker for ensuring that this trip was undertaken, and we were ably represented by this delegation in the meeting that produced this Report. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I support the adoption of this Report. It is a good Report and this House should agree to adopt it and all its recommendations. But as I always say, we can always make something good to be better. On the whole, I must say that this Report is comprehensive. May be, just to add on to some of the things that needed to be said, I want to pick on one or two points that emanate from this Report. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of food security that was discussed under the joint committee No.1 on Economic Development, Finance and Trade, the details of these discussions and resolutions reached, in my opinion, are captured on page 16 of this Report. Page 16, paragraph 14 explains the kind of problems that African countries experience from day to day. We have talked a lot about food security. I am sure that the arguments were raised in the presence of Members of Parliament from some European Countries. We were told that 78 MPs attended from Africa and another 78 attended from Europe. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, one of our biggest problems in terms of food security in Africa is that there is the question of agricultural subsidies that are given to farmers in European countries. These food subsidies enable farmers there to produce at a cost of almost nil. People are paid just to keep farming and increase employment. When the food is brought to Africa, it is dumped here. This effectively kills the food industry within the African continent. 538 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 17, 2008 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would urge this Parliament, and any future delegation that will go to these meetings of the ACP and European Union Parliaments to make this point, and extract a commitment from them that they will stop these subsidies. We cannot have food security in Africa, if we continue to have the dumping of food as has been the case throughout. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want future delegations from this Parliament to stick to this. This is where, as the Member for Garsen, I would want to request that any time we are going to have this Parliament being represented outside there, we should be able to be given notice in time. We need to pass certain resolutions that our representatives will carry and make sure they bring us reports on them. We cannot continue to pretend that food security will be achieved if the global economy is skewed to this extent. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other point that I have extracted, and would want to discuss, is the issue of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which was also discussed under the Joint Committee No. 1. In the world, we are going into economic partnership between States. Today, during the swearing-in ceremony for Ministers and Assistant Ministers, the hon. President of the Republic of Uganda demonstrated this fact very clearly. The East African Community (EAC), as a community, suffered during the time when Kenya had a problem. He said that when one part of a body is aching, the whole body is affected. He said if the back is aching the head will also ache. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the EAC is a great economic partnership. It is now integrating even other countries like Burundi and Rwanda. I like the recommendation contained here, that there is need for us to mix political reality on the ground with the economic partnership. I like the recommendation from the leader of the delegation in particular. She pointed out that it would be necessary that when we are choosing Members to represent us in the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), it is time we started to think seriously about direct elections. This will give them the mandate to properly speak for us, both in the political and economic partnership. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the political situation in Kenya, there was a lot of interest during this meeting, as can be see from the Report. A lot of recommendations were made with regard to the political situation in Kenya. However, the thing that I would want to underline is contained on page eight of this Report. If you look at bullet one of this page, at the very top, you will see that one of the things that the Members of ACP-EU recommended was to call upon the international community to render adequate assistance for the reconstruction of the affected areas, including the urgent resettlement of the displaced persons with special focus on rural and slum habitations. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the experience we, as a Government, have had previously is that a lot of meetings and many countries in international fora, are very quick to give undertakings. They even go ahead and say we are pledging Kshs1 billion for this, or US$10 million for that, or 20 million euros for these programmes. However, at the time of implementation, these countries always let us down. Again, I would want to use the Floor of this House to urge our partners who have committed themselves towards helping us in the reconciliation process, to please make good their pledges. Today, the Kenya Government requires a lot of money to carry out resettlement of our displaced people. We need money to rebuild classrooms that were destroyed. We also need money to reconstruct teachers' houses that were burnt down during the post-election chaos. We need to construct more dispensaries and rehabilitate other facilities that were burnt down. We need to help businessmen to start again their works. The international community should make good all their pledges. Otherwise, we would have a big problem in this country. It would be a big embarrassment to this Government, if one month after the Grand Coalition Cabinet was sworn in, we would still speak of visiting people in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) April 17, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 539 camps. This would be a big embarrassment, to not only Kenya, but also to the East African Community and the world which pledged to help us. I hope that recommendation would be taken very seriously by our supporters and friends who were there, when we needed them most. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the same topic of the political situation in Kenya, I really hail the fact that on page seven, there was special recognition for the former UN Secretary General, Dr. Kofi Annan and the Eminent African Persons; Mrs. Graca Machel and the former Tanzanian President, His Excellency Benjamin Mkapa for resolving the crisis. It was a good example that showed Africa needs an african solution. For a long time, the habit has been, Africa always looks up to the West for its solutions. We look up to the West when we are seeking new technology. We look up to the West when we are looking for every other thing. I am very happy that when we got into problems, it was the same people from Africa, who came together and made peace part of the continent. This is something that I am very pleased to see in this Report. We may, in the future, need to focus on fellow Africans to get our own solution. Indeed, this would help us to change our mentality as a continent. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am also very interested on the topic on domestication of international instruments. If you look at Parliament today, and it was the experience of the Ninth Parliament, it has been noted by the leader of the delegation, in paragraph 9, on page 9 of this Report. Whenever we are discussing important matters and reports on international relations, Kenya relating to other countries, or our Parliament going abroad to do this or that in another country, or our country adopting international laws, you find that Parliament is not interested. Members of Parliament are not even grasping a lot of the stuff that needs to be discussed. I am very happy that the leader of this delegation, who is a first time Member of this House, has seen it necessary to put this issue in this Report. It says: \"One of the reasons may be that, despite its important place in the structure of functioning of Kenya and contrary to the to the practice in most other ACP-EU states, our National Assembly is invariably overlooked in the processes of endorsing international treaties and agreements. This House has a duty to change this trend. This may involve passing of legal instruments necessary to require that all international treaties and agreements need debate and endorsement of the National Assembly.\" Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is a very critical point. I am happy that the leader of the delegation has captured it. She is a new Member of this House. Time has come for this House, being the supreme organ that expresses the combined will of the Kenyan people, to pass legislation that will require every international obligation, that the Executive led by the President, wants to commit this country to, must pass through this House, for proper debate and adoption. In so doing, this Parliament and Members of Parliament will be aware of what is happening. We have been in many times told as parliamentarians, Kenya is a signatory to this and that convention or international law. Yet, this Parliament has never been given the opportunity to debate those issues. We have adopted the system similar to the United States, where the Executive goes out there, and commits the entire nation; then that becomes the law. It is time we went the European way where if the Executive has any intent of committing the nation to any international norms or standards, they must come back to this Parliament and get approval. We must have that because it is only then we would be able to properly help our country. We carry the nation to bring it where it should be internationally. It would be very dangerous to continue with the trend of adopting international instruments without approval of Parliament. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I know that any ordinary Member of Parliament can bring a Motion for that purpose, but it would be easier for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I think time has come for them to originate legislation to that effect, so that this Parliament can be 540 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 17, 2008 empowered to that effect. That will enable us to approve international treaties. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I said before, on the whole, the entire Report is good. I would urge hon. Members in this House to adopt it without much ado. But, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I sit down, there is one point that has struck me, and which needed to be looked into again. When you have a gathering of Members of Parliament from 78 African countries and 78 countries from Europe--- One of the things they discussed under the Joint Committee is social affairs and environment. Amongst the things they discussed were, for example, children. It is very sad that we were not able to discuss an important issue that affects the health of Africa as a whole. Statistics show us that--- It will be very sad if we keep on escaping the scourge of malaria, not even HIV/AIDS! HIV/AIDS has been touched on in this Report. But the health of our children and women in Africa is at risk because of the killer disease called malaria. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I feel that it was very sad to have left out that issue. About 2 million people die every year from malaria-causing mosquitos. Those deaths occur mainly in children and women in Africa. About 90 per cent of those deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Surely, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, when you have 78 members of Parliament discussing, amongst other things, child issues, it would have been important to discuss that. I feel that, probably, in the next ACP-EU meeting, they should have that issue as part of their discussions. The Heads of States from 44 African States met on 25th April, 2000, in Abuja, Nigeria, and they made a declaration about the fight against malaria. They set certain standards or criteria. It would be important that when we have gatherings of such nature, those themes are discussed. It is very well to discuss economic development, finance and trade, political affairs and also social affairs. But who are we discussing with if our people are all dying in the Continent of Africa? Then, we fail even to have a quick mention of this killer disease. So, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, other than this omission, I think this House will be doing a good and great duty to make sure that we adopt this Report in its entirety. It is my prayer that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will take into cognisance all the issues that we have raised here in the House and, most importantly, bring legislation that will help us, as a Parliament, to start dealing with international instruments before we domesticate them. With those few remarks, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to support. Thank you."
}