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{
    "id": 775370,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/775370/?format=api",
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    "content": "because most of the member states in the region have just come out of war and conflict situations and we feel that we needed to play a great role as a nation. Madam Temporary Speaker, the other objective is to promote democracy, good governance and respect for human rights. Those are very important for regions just coming out of conflict. I cannot read all of the objectives because they are going to be in the report, but let me just highlight the organs that run this forum. They are as follows; there is the plenary assembly which was meeting at that time. It meets once every year in December and rotates in the 12 countries. Then there is the Executive Committee, of which I am privileged to be a member. Then, there are other Committees to which Members of this House and the National Assembly can belong. Then, of course, we have the general secretariat. This particularly meeting for which this Report is about was held under very difficult situations. That just goes to tell us that there are countries which are difficult to travel to. For example, we were holed up in one hotel for long. You cannot travel freely within some of these countries, but that is our duty. I can assure you that the Kenyan Parliament is held in very high esteem because of the experiences we offer in that conference. The President of the Central Africa Republic was very much part of the meeting; at least the opening session of the meeting. We had the Speaker of the National Assembly, who is called “The President of the National Assembly,” who was also very active. He was the chair and president of the meeting. One of the contentious issues in this Report, as you will find, is the election or appointment of the Secretary General. This Report goes to tell us what happened during that time in the process of trying to get a new Secretary General. The general secretariat is run by a Secretary General, who is appointed on a three-year contract, which is renewable only once. The last holder of that office was from Rwanda. So, it was becoming necessary to replace the Secretary General. There were many candidates whose names were presented. But, after we sorted out those shortlisted, we came up with a shortlist of two; one from the Central Africa Republic and the other from Uganda. It was a big challenge because no one wanted to give way to the other. It was resolved that this matter be put into the agenda of the Executive Committee in the next meeting, so that the Executive Committee can go through the candidatures and come up with recommendations. It is very important for this House to note that following this Report and subsequent to this, it was then possible for this Executive Committee to come up with the solution. I am happy to report that subject to the confirmation by the meeting of Speakers, the next Secretary General will come from Uganda. But that is, again, subject to that confirmation. All these things will be in the Report; I just wanted to highlight them. I also want to show that our own election of 2017 was of much interest to the region. You will read in the Report that we were able to explain the issues around our election. You will also get to know that the Report offers the synopsis of what went on in the Rwanda election of 2017, which was happening about the same time as ours, only that ours was much more pronounced. This ICGLR forum was able to observe both elections. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}