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{
    "id": 93329,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/93329/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 230,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Kamar",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Environment and Mineral Resources",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 33,
        "legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
        "slug": "margaret-kamar"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to take this first opportunity to thank His Excellency the President for appointing me an Assistant Minister in this Ministry. I know that this appointment is a reflection of the trust that the President and the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister have in me. I want to assure them that I will not let them down in this position that they have given me. I would also like to say that I am privileged to serve under the Minister, hon. Michuki, a man we have continued to describe as an action-oriented Minister. He is a Minister who promised to clean the Nairobi River last year and today everybody is saying “congratulations” for his good work. So, I am really honoured to work under this Minister. I promise him that I will not let him down as the Assistant Minister in his Office. We will be working together towards the same goal of ensuring that he achieves what he has outlined today. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I support this Ministry’s Vote, I will only touch on a few things. The first one is on the things that the Ministry has been doing in the last one year. I was honoured to have gone as a member of the Pan African Parliamentarians Network for Climate Change (PAPNCC) to Copenhagen, where we presented issues. As Members of Parliament, our role was to lobby other parliaments on the issues that Africa was fighting for, also considering I am a Member of the Pan African Parliamentarians Network on Climate Change. One of the side events that took place in Copenhagen, which we are proud of talking about as Members of Parliament, was the launching of the National Climate Change Response Strategy; this was done in Copenhagen. I congratulate the Minister and the technical staff, who did a lot of work round the clock before the commencement of the meeting in Copenhagen to ensure that, that was done. I congratulate them because I was one of the Members of Parliament who were asked to critique the document. I agree with Dr. Otichilo that the document is a masterpiece that needs implementation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it will be the role of the House to nurture it into a law. We need a climate change law in this country. There are very few countries in Africa which have such a law. In our network, we learnt that Nigeria was the first one to have it. Others are at the development stage, and we would like Kenya to be at the forefront, because we are known for environmental matters, especially as the host of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). So, we should be moving towards creating such a law. I believe that I am not going to relinquish my membership in PAPNCC. I will be joining other members as we work on that law. My belief is that we will work on it as a Government and Parliamentarians, so that we come up with a law that will change this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the docket of mineral resources that I have been given has been outlined very well by the Minister. He has, in fact, given a clear proposal – that his intentions are to make the mining sector contribute very effectively and significantly to the country’s economy. He has set a minimum contribution of 2 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product. I strongly believe in this; the rush we have from the international community towards Africa today has nothing to do with anything else that we have except our natural resources. Everybody is looking at Africa as a potential source of natural resources, and it is time we prepared ourselves for exploitation of the same."
}