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"id": 206594,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Konchella",
"speaker_title": "The Minister of State for Immigration and Registration of Persons",
"speaker": {
"id": 322,
"legal_name": "Gideon Sitelu Konchella",
"slug": "gideon-konchella"
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish I had my full time. But because of your ruling, let me make my contribution very quickly. First, I would like to inform Mr. Syongo that the Kenya Institute of Diplomacy (KID) is at Kabete, and it is running. I also want to congratulate this Ministry as I support this Motion. This is one Ministry that is very important to our country. I congratulate the Ministry because of looking at issues affecting Kenyans in the diaspora. They have taken new blood into the Ministry. We now have many new Kenyan employees working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We, as a Ministry, are working with them. As our economy grows, tourism is taking over as the leading foreign exchange earner in this country. As that happens, the security of this country is paramount. That way, visitors would stay in a peaceful environment and conduct their businesses. In doing so, it is important that in every embassy, we have Immigration Officers. We need to ensure that whoever comes here is not somebody who will cause problems or is a security threat to this country. Indeed, during the course of this year, many people have been deported because of being linked to various terrorist organisations and other factors such as human trafficking. That is now becoming a big problem. I would like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be keen and ensure that Kenyans overseas are accounted for. We, as a Ministry, are soon deploying a digital issuance system of all our passports, so that they are all machine readable. Nobody is going to forge them. Many Kenyans, particulary students, are losing their passports because they can easily be forged by criminals globally. But by October this year, we will be issuing digitalized passports. Indeed, once we know how many Kenyans are in the diaspora such as in the United Kingdom (UK), Europe and United States of America (USA), we intend to have a system to issue passports directly there. Those who have children there do not have to come to Kenya. The world is becoming a global village. We will be able to communicate through the fibre optic cable come the year 2010. So, we can issue passports in USA and UK. It is important to conduct a census and know the number of Kenyans living in all those countries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another concern I have regards athletes who leave this country to run for certain institutions. There are young ladies who are leaving this country to work in Europe and other parts of the world. They should leave the country with the consent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that we can trace them. Some of them end up being victims of human-trafficking and find themselves in other dehumanising situations in Europe. That is what is happening now, globally. There is also an emerging interesting phenomenon where many Europeans are coming here to adopt children. Indeed, my Ministry is being flooded by people who are seeking documentation for those children to travel to those countries. We do not need just a law regarding the issue of adoption but also come up with a law to ensure that we can monitor the adopted children up to the age of 18 years, when they are old enough to take care of themselves. Otherwise, they may end up being human slaves in those countries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is also important for us, as a Parliament, to have a law to control the issue of remittance of tourism earnings. I know that there are many tourist facilities in the Kenyan tourist hotels that are run by foreigners. Most of these foreigners do not remit all the money that is owed to this country gained from the business of hotels and other August 29, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3581 tourism activities in this country. Parliament should pass a law to ensure that if a tourist wants to come to Kenya, he sends his money here before he arrives in the country. That way, we can triple our foreign exchange earnings and, indeed, our Shilling will be much stronger. We could hit the trillion mark within a year or two if we bring that law. I challenge hon. Members to address this issue because we are not earning any money from the tourist attractions. People come and enjoy in Kenya, but only a third of that money ends up in this country. I wish I had more time. However, thank you, for the opportunity."
}