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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mwiraria",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to support the Report of the 12th ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. In supporting the Report, let me make a few comments on the topics discussed by that Assembly. A topic of great interest to us here in Kenya is tourism. I must say that the Government of Kenya took the right decision when they decided to give tourism the first priority in their first development programme after taking over as the NARC Government. That was an area where we had facilities which needed refurbishing and where all that was required was proper management. In fact, the work on tourism has been so effective and so successful that today it is almost impossible to get any hotel bed in this country. For instance, it was not possible for Kenyans to get hotel beds at the Coast during the Easter holidays. So, many of them had to contend with the cooler climates up-country. For that reason, the Government has a duty to promote the establishment of more hotel facilities in the country. In doing so, the Government should also re-examine the whole tourist sector, particularly with a view to ensuring that tourists see other parts of Kenya. That will call for introduction of new circuits in areas which may have been forgotten. There are areas where we have national parks but people have killed most of the animals but because of good management, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is now able to translocate elephants, rhinos and many other animals from one park to another. So, for the parks like the one next to Kacheliba, the Government should re-stock it and introduce a new circuit which could include Kapenguria, through Sidiloi, then come back to Kapenguria where the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was imprisoned and move on to the other areas of the country. We could also have another circuit in western Kenya where the lake region forms a special circuit. That will be for those Kenyans who cannot go down to the coast to do what watalii come to do here. We can move around and get to understand our own country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another aspect of tourism which we have ignored in Kenya is cultural tourism. Here, we need to take people to see how various ethnic groups in Kenya live, what their primary food items are and so on. We need to develop African cuisine which could be the primary offer for those coming from outside the country. In order to establish new hotels and other places for tourism, the Government needs to consider incentives which should be given to developers such as tax waivers. We also seriously need to consider what to do with sex tourism. Although they say that prostitution is as old as mankind, we have to grapple with the question of whether we want to have young under-age prostitutes and how to stop it. Another aspect of tourism which we should guard against is the introduction of drugs by some of the tourists to our young people. In addition, we should guard against the use of this country as the transit point for drugs, particularly by some of the tourists who have come and settled here in Kenya as has been the case in the past. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me say a few words about that part of the Report dealing with small arms. I could not agree with the Report more than to say that small arms are, in fact, the true weapons of mass destruction in our small developing country. These weapons, in a 568 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 11, 2007 country like Kenya are the enemy number one to development because without security there can be no meaningful development. It is not enough for a country like Kenya to ask people to surrender small arms without attacking the source of the small arms. So, our Government should see to it that the international community, through the United Nations (UN) and other UN agencies get to grips with the sale of small arms and their distribution to countries which cannot control them. It is through that system that Kenya has suffered from the acquisition of small arms. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me make a final comment on water, which is, in fact, one of the human rights. Kenya happens to be one of the few countries on the continent that do not have enough water for its population. For this reason, we should, as a country, begin conserving water and using it appropriately, because we cannot afford the desalination process whereby we distil water and remove salt from it. The Report states categorically, I do not know whether it is correct, that most children die of diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases. The Report talks of 1.8 billion children. But I do not think this could possibly be correct. Nonetheless, it is true that we do have deaths from cholera even here in Kenya. Even you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, mentioned deaths from cholera which occur from consumption of bad water."
}