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"id": 206830,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/206830/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Arungah",
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"speaker": {
"id": 292,
"legal_name": "Julius Odenyo Arungah",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, like my other colleagues have said, I am in the forefront of those who are saying that this Ministry, indeed, should be renamed \"the Ministry of International Trade and Foreign Affairs\". There was a time when we needed these gentlemen who are always smiling and versed in good manners. However, times have generally changed because, as a country, we are able to fund our Budget to the tune of about 95 per cent. Therefore, our embassy staff have been saved the indignity to having to trot from office to office begging for support from the countries where they are accredited. I, therefore, support the sentiments of my colleagues who have said that what we need to do is to staff our embassies with people that are versed and competent in matters of trade and commerce. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would suggest, for example, that the Ministry does take an audit, as we speak, in all our foreign embassies to see who do we have in these offices, what are their qualifications and competencies. Therefore, how do they contribute to their targets and aims in overall and that is increasing trade between those countries and our country? We should have a situation where the Ministry has a set criteria for nominating or appointing those people to represent us in foreign countries. We have seen, like my colleagues have said, situations where people have been picked from almost nowhere and have been made ambassadors and to work in those stations. Some of them have been appointed, perhaps because they know somebody who is closely connected to the Ministry. We must have a set criteria where an individual or an officer joins the Ministry and knows that \"this is what I will have to do to advance in my career\" and not spend too much of their time worshipping individuals in the Ministry in order to get a posting. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I said that the attitude of our staff in the embassies has generally improved, but there is one anomaly. You find there are some very competent and committed and such like staff who want to go there and work, but unfortunately, they have not been adequately funded. You have a situation where somebody has to go and attend a seminar or some function that is happening, that would be of benefit to this country. You will find that they do not have simple things like an air ticket or transport to travel to that venue to attend that seminar. So, it is very expensive to have officers posted abroad who are not adequately funded to function because, as a country, that is very expensive. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other thing that I found out is that some of the officers who are posted to these embassies do not have adequate information from this country. I want to believe that everybody, beginning with the ambassador, has to have competence and experience in matters of trade. It is not a question of how much he can smile, but how much he knows about trade. Everybody else down the ladder, including secretaries and drivers, should have a bias towards trade and commerce. In this way, we will have them giving us the traders who are visiting those countries and be able to get the necessary information to create the contacts in those countries or for sourcing materials that may be required from our countries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, my colleagues have alluded to something about these appointments. I want to subscribe to the idea that we should do an audit right now as to how much trade we are doing with each individual country. Having established what level of trade we are at, we should then set benchmarks where we say that in year \"X\", the amount of trade was so many August 28, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3507 millions of dollars. Your promotion will depend on what kind of improvement you have made on whatever you found when you were posted to a particular station. In addition, I would recommend that we set up some kind of a reward mechanism for an ambassador and his staff of an embassy, which has increased the volume of trade by a certain percentage, to be rewarded in a given manner. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, at policy level, my colleagues have said that we have improved from a stage where we used to be a \"wait-and-see\" country to being a little more proactive. I am yet to see that myself, because it is not very clear, in many cases, what our position, as a country, is on many international issues. For example, if you were to ask me what Kenya's position is on the invasion of Iraq, I do not know it because we have not come out, as a Government, to state our position. Closer to home, we do not know what Kenya's position is on what is happening to our neighbours to the north in Darfur. So, we need to come out more clearly. I have been told that the policy is in the process of being formulated. We would like to know, for example, what our foreign policy, generally, is for us to be able to find out, or determine, whether we are conforming to it or not. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would also like the Ministry to be a little more assertive. As I have said, we are becoming more and more independent. However, it is very annoying when you see representatives of various countries in Kenya, appearing to tell us what we should do. There is no way an ambassador in Washington DC can dare decide which political party Kenya, or anybody, is going to fund and get away with it. He will, immediately, be summoned and, possibly, deported to Kenya. So, as a country, we should be a little more assertive and tell foreign diplomats that they should not cross certain lines. There are certain issues they are allowed to comment on, but they should steer clear of our internal affairs. There is not very much we are getting from them and, therefore, we can afford to be a little more assertive. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of allocations, I would like to see some semblance, or some kind of rationale, in how, for example, the Ministry allocates money to the various embassies. I happen to know that, as a trading partner, Uganda happens to the number one country, but I challenge the Ministry to look at the amount of money spent on the staffing level. How many members of staff does the Ministry have in Kampala as opposed to those they have in Washington DC? To me, this disproportionate allocation of resources does not make sense. We must look at each individual country in terms of how much the embassy staff are contributing to our trade with each country, and see if we can allocate our resources based on what benefits are accruing for the country. I am, therefore, saying that the Ministry should look at the importance of those stations and allocate resources that are commensurate with the volume of trade emanating from those countries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I happen to know that, for example, in Vision 2030, tourism has been identified as one of the flagship sectors. In my recent visit to Germany, for example, I was dismayed. The Embassy informed me that the Tourism Office in Germany had been closed down. We know the number of German tourists this country receives annually. So, the Ministry should, in terms of exploiting the economies of scale, set up a small office and, at least, host an officer from the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife to co-ordinate and promote tourism. The Government has identified tourism as a flagship sector in Vision 2030, but I do not see this reflected in the manner in which the staff have been posted to our foreign embassies. So, generally speaking, as I said, there has been a general upward trend - an improvement in the manner in which staff in our foreign embassies are handling Kenyans. There was a time when, if you made a phone call, or visited an embassy abroad, the staff there would look at you as 3508 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 28, 2007 if to say: \"What does he want in this place\"? We can improve on that, because our foreign embassies should be accessible at all times. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}