HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 228454,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/228454/?format=api",
"text_counter": 148,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Kituyi",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Trade and Industry",
"speaker": {
"id": 293,
"legal_name": "Mukhisa Kituyi",
"slug": "mukhisa-kituyi"
},
"content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, in the lives of the past two Parliaments, this House has been a very important catalyst of Kenyan public approval and support for the process of East African integration. Without the singular united leadership and encouragement of this House, I do not think the momentum, again, in moving from the East African Co-operation to East African Community, to the step of a Customs Union Protocol 296 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 3, 2007 Agreement, would have been done in the record period it has taken. Today, we are at a stage when, perhaps, the most critical decision since the Customs Union, is to be made; a decision of a road map towards greater political integration of East Africa. One would have expected that we, as hon. Members of Parliament, would offer political leadership to this country. If you listen to the level of debate that is going on right now in the so- called consultation forum, there is a dire absence of political leadership from the political class. We are letting wananchi walk in the wilderness about whether greater East African integration is good for us or not. This is unfortunate in two important regards. The premier institution for giving a sense of the nation in political matters, is the National Assembly. When we are talking about eventual and gradual ceding of our political sovereignty, Members of the National Assembly should be the catalysts of public awareness and say the sense of what the national interest is in this. Mr. Speaker, Sir, secondly, by a wide margin, Kenya is the most important beneficiary of East African integration. Over the past few years, we have seen a massive expansion of Kenyan exports in goods and services to the member countries of the East African Community (EAC). Today, Uganda is the most important trading partner of Kenya in the whole world. Today, because of coming into force of the first stages of the East African Customs Union, Tanzania has overtaken Egypt as the second largest trading partner of Kenya in Africa, at least, as the destination of Kenyan produce. Today, more than 40 per cent of the top auditors and accountants and 80 per cent of top managers of the tourist industry in Uganda and Tanzania are Kenyans. Uganda and Tanzania are important destination markets for Kenyan service trade. At such a time, it would be critically important that the political intelligentsia of Kenya discusses what is in our national interest, as we look to deepening our role in two important destinations of Kenyan produce and services exports. Instead of that, we are playing a pedantic role. We are sitting back while wananchi go to halls to listen to people who give them their warped understanding of what is the East African Customs Union and East African Federation, and we let the Press prey on this, as if it represents Kenya. I want to urge colleagues, regardless of our partisan views, that this is the time that we should start gaining and offering leadership to the citizens of this nation, about where we are going as East Africa. Kenya will be the principal beneficiary of any form of greater opening up, internally, of East Africa. We have gone through the most difficult teething problems; the first two years of asymmetrical customs relationship, where all imports from the two countries were uncustomed and many of our exports were customed. We have paid the price. We are now in the final phase of the elimination of the varied asymmetrical instruments, internally, to East Africa. At a time when we are now preparing to maximise our benefits economically, we should be also preparing to maximise our benefits politically. But instead of pointing to this as a critical era in East Africa, Kenyan politicians are letting fear determine the mode of debate on East African integration. I urge my colleagues to rise up to our responsibility, at a critical time; redefine our understanding of the East African integration - what is genuinely at risk or in stock for Kenya - and speak with one voice about what is the best way to time the political integration of East Africa, but not to let it appear as if we are hostile to it. Mr. Speaker, Sir, turning on slightly different matters, I have a sense that the politics of this country is growing in a cyclic motion. We embrace traditional topics and divisions and build them with such a vigour, that we lose the opportunity to define new things that this country can do. A few years ago, when we were fighting for democratic opening up - many may not remember or conveniently try not to remember - the conditions were very hostile. We were almost Mugabe and Zimbabwe. But things have moved on. The economy has picked up momentously. The people have seen the light and the State has shrunk in its capacity to reverse the gains of democracy. Where is the vision thing about the next level this country has to go? We continue trading accusations about April 3, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 297 who is responsible or not accountable for what has happened or not. We are stuck in the history that does not help this country to start defining a new vision. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I saw a gust of fresh air the weekend when we hosted the World Cross- Country Championships and Harambee performed the miracle of defeating a modest Swaziland in soccer. The fact that we could celebrate a victory against Swaziland, was a statement about how lowly we had gone; that even this little one can be celebrated like a major harvest. But beyond a certain level, a responsibility of political leadership is to nurture the collective shared good sense in our society. Instead of the grumpiness that we bring to the political arena by divisive competition and backward-looking trading of accusations and responsibilities, we can create a sense of shared goodness, as Kenyans. We can share a sense of being proud of where we are and build on that as a platform to encourage others to look at what Kenyans can do. If we can remember, in the run-up to the World Cross-Country Championships in Mombasa, there was a very unpatriotic phenomenon happening; that every time a few people would say that they would disrupt the Cross Country Championships, the media would build up large stories. More threats increased about the Cross- Country Championships, playing into the hands of Americans with their issuance of ridiculous travel advisories about this country. In most societies, patriotism will express itself through a media that will kill petty stories that try to paint the motherland as a terrible place. Patriotism will wrap everybody into Kenyanness, the way the audience did it in Mombasa. We are not raising a finger because as a political class, we have taken our eyes off the ball of Kenyan patriotism."
}