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{
    "id": 206627,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/206627/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 205,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Tuju",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 345,
        "legal_name": "Raphael Tuju",
        "slug": "raphael-tuju"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Chairman, Sir, I just want to thank the hon. Member for that question. Ideally, we should purchase all the properties that are used by our Missions abroad. Take for example the case of Washington, which I am very familiar with. You will realise that the houses that we rent for staff today, say at an average of US$4,000 a month, if we had bought those houses, say about five years ago, we would be paying a mortgage now of about US$800 to US$1,000. So, the best time to have planted the tree should have been ten years ago. We should have bought those properties ten years ago, but because of the financial situation which we found ourselves in, we did not make any provisions for that. Now, we have started the process of trying to purchase some of the properties. We have been renting some of them for many years. Mr. Temporary Deputy Chairman, Sir, I could give the example of China. What is happening in China is that, we have been paying rent since 1964 for the same building. Had we bought this building in 1964, we would have saved that money several times over. If we could get all the money now, we could buy all the properties that we want now. But we have prioritised some of the countries, and so where you see various provisions relating to 2010, it is part of forward planning. So, that anybody looking at these Printed Estimates should know that we should have bought that property ten years ago when, in fact, it could have cost us much less. Even if we continue to pay rent, let us not do so beyond 2009 or 2010 before we start purchasing it. 3588 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 29, 2007"
}