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{
    "id": 206561,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/206561/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 139,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Weya",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 304,
        "legal_name": "Sammy Arthur Weya",
        "slug": "sammy-weya"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to talk on this Motion. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the ambassadors of this country have not lived up to their expectations. If you go to respective countries, you will find that many of them are not aware of their duties. We send some of our people to work as ambassadors and yet, some of them are military officers, bishops and even politicians, without both critically looking at their credentials and training them properly. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think the duty of ambassadors is to market their countries in those countries where they have been posted. You find ambassadors who have no idea of where the left and right hands are because they have no clue of what they are doing in marketing their countries. They think their responsibility is to wine and dine which I do not think is what they should be doing. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I recently travelled to Helsinki as a representative of the Kenyan Parliament on issues of Information Communication Technology (ICT). I do not think our ambassador to that country even knew that the three of us were there! Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is critical for us, as a country, to know that our embassies out there represent the Kenyan people, and that they are responsible for running matters regarding the country. They should be our agents for selling Kenya's products as well as selling Kenya as a tourist destination. You find that some embassies do not even have pamphlets to issue to people who have called on them to get information about our country. August 29, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3567 I was able to talk to some ambassadors out there on several occasions. One of their cries was that they did not have enough resources to run the ambassadorial offices. It is critical for us, as a country, to account for the embassies that we have right now. We should establish whether they are profitable to run or they are not. Let us fund and run properly those embassies which need to be funded and close down those which are not doing anything for this country. There is no reason for running an embassy which is not doing any good for us, as a country. For example, when we had the problem of the Anglo Leasing scandal, it should have been the job of the embassy to verify, on behalf our country, whether that company existed or did not exist."
}