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"id": 247104,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mwancha",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I stand to second this Motion which has been ably elaborated by the leader of the Kenyan delegation to the Pan-African Parliament (PAP). Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as Mr. Oparanya said, the Clerk of the PAP is a Kenyan. I would also like to say that the Minister for Finance of the PAP, who is actually the Chairman of the Finance Committee, is none other than Mr. Oparanya himself who has read the Report of the two sessions. Mr. Oparanya and, indeed, the Kenyan delegation and Kenya as a country is playing a very major role in that Parliament. However, what is letting us down is the fact that out of the 55 countries represented in that Parliament, very many of them have not paid their arrears. To our surprise, despite the fact that the Minister for Finance and the Clerk of that Parliament, Mr. Murumba Werunga, are Kenyans, Kenya is one of those defaulters who have not paid their arrears. I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Minister concerned to ensure that Kenya has paid up so that we can play our rightful role in that Parliament. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the PAP has financial problems arising from the fact that member countries are not paying their dues. Because of that, you will find that even attendance by hon. Members from different countries is not steady. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Government of Kenya and this Parliament because Kenyans are regular in our meetings for the ordinary sessions and also for the committees. There are many countries who only attend ordinary sessions. They do not attend committees. Some countries do not actually attend that Parliament because of lack of funds. The PAP has looked for ways of raising funds. In that respect, they have set up a trust fund that will approach various donors, partners, countries and well-wishers who are willing to support the cause of the African people so that they can contribute to the fund. This will ensure that the PAP has sufficient funds. The PAP was lucky in the sense that the Government of South Africa agreed to build a Parliament where all hon. Members from all countries have offices. I would like to say that the offices we have in the PAP are much better than what we have in our Continental House. We have all that, thanks to the South African Government. Among other issues that were discussed by the Parliament were the fact that some countries in Africa are flouting their own constitutions. The case of Uganda came up where President Museveni had been in power for quite some time. The Constitution said that Presidents could only go on for two terms. However, after completing those two terms, President Museveni thought that he should go for a third term. This issue was looked at. There are, indeed, a number of countries contemplating reviewing their constitutions to lift term limits. The PAP made a resolution to the African Union (AU) to ensure that if the Constitution states two terms, it should be so and such presidents should bow out and give a chance to other people to lead their countries. I sincerely hope that in this country, we shall continue the way we started with the last two Presidents and the current one; that after the two terms as stipulated in the Constitution, the President bows out and a new President is elected. In that regard, we walked tall in South Africa when we said that we have respected the Constitution with regard to the provision of term limits. We work through Committees. I personally serve in the Committee of Agriculture, Rural Economy and Natural Resources. One of the aspects that we looked at and made recommendations to the AU was that of the plunder of genetic resources, both plants and animal material. Companies from the West come to developing countries and pick plant materials which they then develop in their laboratories in their countries to produce medicine that they sell very expensively to the June 14, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1379 developing countries. We also looked at the fact that most African countries still produce commodities as their cash crops that are bought cheaply from developing countries. They are exported to the West and there is value addition. That is the case with Kenya's tea and coffee, where we process our tea, export it at the Mombasa Tea Auction and then it is re-packed. Basically, the value addition aspect is the re-packing which is then sold world-wide as tea by Lipton or Twillings from London when that tea actually comes from Kenya. We looked at this issue and our advice by way of resolution to the AU is that it is about time the African countries started value addition of their export commodities in their country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, since the Report was elaborated very well by the Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity, once again, to thank him. With those few remarks, I beg to second."
}