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"speaker_name": "Mr. Konchella",
"speaker_title": "The Minister of State for Immigration and Registration of Persons",
"speaker": {
"id": 322,
"legal_name": "Gideon Sitelu Konchella",
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Chairman, Sir, those are very good questions, which need clarification for the benefit of the House. First, Ms. Ndung'u talked about the operationalisation of the Refugees Act. Indeed, we had a problem in making it fully operational, although the operationalisation is going on, because of certain amendments that we have to bring to the House, one of which, I think, was done in this House. It was the issue of allowing, for example, people to come to Kenya without passes. For instance, it allowed people to be here for a month before they can be asked to register. This is opening entry into this country, and we are having many people, who use this loophole in the Act, coming here and of, course, after a month or so, they disappear. So, we have to undertake certain amendments to that Act once again to try and tighten up the security of this nation. Otherwise, it is September 11, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3815 operational in certain areas and, indeed, we are now faced with the issue of capacity building. What is happening also is that we are being funded by other friendly nations to try and improve the capacity of the department to operate and operationalise the Act. This includes the appointment of a Commissioner of Refugees and a council for refugees, which is going to undertake this process. I am in the process of appointing those people so that they can undertake their duties. The other issue is the registration of students. Indeed, we completed the exercise of registering Kenyans who were left out by the last regime; they were not being registered. I am glad that we now have more Kenyans registered, but I am afraid that some hon. Members of this House might lose their seats because there are too many people who are going to vote against them. But that be that as it may, I assure the hon. Member that we are starting an exercise of registering students, as it used to happen before, in their schools. This exercise is now on-going. We are in the process and I am glad that the Minister for Finance has even supported the Ministry with Kshs200 million to enable us to register students up to December this year in the whole country. So, the exercise is on-going. The other important issue is that of remuneration of immigration officers. Indeed, the Departmental Committee on Administration, National Security and Local Authorities sat down with us in Mombasa at several fora to review the immigration law. Right now, we have more than three registration Acts, and so many other Acts that need to be harmonised. We have done the first and second drafts. We have even done the last draft which I am presenting to the Cabinet shortly. It is a policy paper on the issue of these documents, so that it can go to the Attorney-General for printing and then come to this House for debate. After that, we will ensure that immigration officers are at par with officers in other departments, because we are creating an immigration service, which will raise the salaries of the officers to those of the KRA, so that they are also deployed immediately because they handle a lot of money. Indeed, now we are collecting Kshs3 billion to Kshs4 billion every year from issuance of visas and stamp duties on so many other documents used when people come to this country. I think the other issue which needs clarification is that of about new passports. I want to assure Mr. Muite that we had a problem this year. If you get a passport now in Nairobi it is printed electronically, and it is not forgeable but we had to do that as a stop-gap-measure, because we had procured an issuing system from the company. If you remember the cost of this thing before was almost Kshs1 billion, but we have bought the same thing for Kshs100 million. So, the company that is supplying to us is a parastatal of the Government of Pakistan. So, it is not just a company which anybody can have access to. It is a Government parastatal; it is protected fully by the Pakistani Government, and they are the ones who are doing passports for Pakistan, Bangladesh and so many other countries within that region. So, this equipment will be installed by October and we hope that by the time we operationalise it, it will be fully secure."
}