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"id": 197051,
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"speaker_name": "Prof. Kamar",
"speaker_title": "The Member for Eldoret East",
"speaker": {
"id": 33,
"legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity. I want to support the Motion for the Adjournment. We need time to go home and reflect. As somebody said, we need time to visit our constituencies. During the International Day of Women, I had an opportunity to visit my constituents, together with my sister from Eldoret South Constituency. I thank God and the people of Eldoret East Constituency for giving me an opportunity to serve them in this august House, although we were greeted with fire just after we were elected. I had an opportunity to visit all our Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), together with my sister from Eldoret South. In fact, we invited the lady Members of Parliament, because it was a ladies' day. Unfortunately, we managed to get only one. I thank hon. Shebesh for coming with us. What we saw is something which hon. Members must see. As an hon. Member mentioned here earlier on, what is going on in the IDP camps should not be happening in this country. We have rape cases and crowds of children who are not in class. They are out of control as far as classroom rules are concerned. Those are things that we need to go and reflect on. We should ask ourselves which are the best ways and quick solutions to adopt to deal with the issues. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, may I also take this opportunity to congratulate His Excellency the President and the Prime Minister-designate for signing the Peace Accord. As Her Excellency, Mrs. Mandela said, it was the coming together of the two that seems to have brought peace almost instantly. We want to recognise that and thank them for reminding Kenyans that the country is 404 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 25, 2008 more important than them. So, I want to congratulate them for that. I was not able to be here during the debate of the Presidential Address until today because I was attending the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Slovenia. I want to thank the Speaker for sending me and Hon. Kabando wa Kabando to go for the African-Caribbean Pacific and European Union (ACP-EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly Group. I want to mention that we learnt a lot from there. First, Kenya was the centre of attraction because during the 14th Session in January, it was decided that Kenya must be discussed. It became a subject of an urgent Motion for resolution in the meeting that we were in. We were discussed four times in the agenda and, on the fifth time, we were debated in the Parliamentary Assembly. I want to say that we learnt a lot from that because some of the issues that came out of the Presidential Speech touched. He talked about tourism and other delicate areas that were affected. The people were talking from their own experiences, that the Kenya tourism was under threat. First, the delegates were very clear. They did not expect that from Kenya. Secondly, they were scared of coming to Kenya. But we are very happy that, while we were there, you debated and passed the two Bills. That gave us a lot of credit! When we gave our first statement that we were now in one coalition and we had gone as a delegation of two hon. Members from the two opposite sides, they gave a sigh of relief and said: \"Now talk! Let us listen to you!\" That alone seemed to have given us a very positive step. What I am saying is that, in fact, in those discussions, members had Motions to censure Kenya. We had eight Motions from the EU and four from the ACP Group. But we were able to reduce all of them to one. I want to say that, even at the very last minute as we reduced them to one, we were quite impressed that we were being debated, it was the day after you had passed the two Bills here. A proposal for an amendment to one of the lines in the statement came out to congratulate the Kenyan Parliament for what it did!"
}