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{
    "id": 198956,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/198956/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 99,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Osundwa",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 298,
        "legal_name": "Wycliffe William Osundwa",
        "slug": "wycliffe-osundwa"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Motion. Indeed, I have seen enthusiasm in hon. Members who want to contribute to this important Motion so I will take a very short time. First of all, I want to thank the Mover of this Motion for seeking to remind the Government of its duty. This Motion is plain and simple. The House simply urges the Government to urgently sign and ratify all protocols agreed in the past. We all remember that Kenya hosted the Second Summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region on 15th December, 2006. Among the programmes agreed were on peace and security, democracy and good governance, economic development and regional integration. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as previous speakers have said, this Government wastes a lot of money on delegations, attending United Nations (UN) conferences where they sign passed protocols some of them calling on the Government to domesticate those protocols into our laws. But they sign them and do not ratify them. I do not know what happens until a public spirited hon. Member like Ms. Ndung'u has to remind the Government of its duty. I want to refer you to Article 9 which is on the Protocol Against Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources. The Article states:- \"In accordance to the Protocol Against the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources to put in place regional rules and mechanisms for combating the illegal exploitation of natural resources which constitute a violation of the states' rights of permanent sovereignty over their natural resources.\" I am referring to a natural resource like Lake Victoria. We have the East Africa Legislative Assembly (EALA) which is supposed to have legislated in their own Parliament on the use of this natural resource. Indeed, there are so many conflicts in this Lake which pits governments against each other over fishing rights. Kenya has failed to check the pollution of this natural resource. Indeed, industries in Kenya continue pouring effluent and polluting Lake Victoria. If you fly over Lake Victoria today, the waters are no longer blue; it is brown water all over. I flew over this Lake two weeks ago on my way to Kigali and I thought something must be done urgently to reverse the effluent discharge into this Lake. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for this Government to sign international accords and fail to domesticate them is actually legendary. I remember that I led a delegation from this country to a UN conference on The Rights of the Child. I was ashamed that all the countries in that conference had domesticated that Charter and had the Children's Act. It was from that incident that I came back and urged the Government and we came up with The Children's Act. The other one was The Convention on the Refugees. We signed this Convention long time ago. Many countries domesticated it in their laws but we did not. I want to thank our current Speaker, Mr. Kaparo, for standing firm on this Government. We pass laws here but to simply come up with regulations to operationalise them has become a problem. So, no wonder we host summits here, pass resolutions, programmes of action and then we go back to sleep. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to re-visit the issue of Felicien Kabuga as a speaker rightly commented. Even a small child in Kigali, Rwanda, knows that Kabuga is here. When I attended that conference last month on peace in Kigali, as a Kenyan, I was put to task to explain why we are hosting this international fugitive. Information in Kigali is that Kabuga's bank accounts in Kenya are fully operational. Who operates these accounts if he is not in this country? No wonder the President of this country has never visited Rwanda on State visits and President Kagame has also refused to come here because of this chilly relationship being caused by hosting this fugitive here. A fact is a fact!"
}