Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 94343,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/94343/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 178,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, I will go to the meat of this. It was important to outline the policies of the Ministry. On Recurrent Expenditure, we are asking for Kshs7,013,869,860. This will go towards salaries, allowances and rents for our missions abroad. On Development Expenditure, we are asking for a small figure of Kshs516,400,000 which will go towards the development of our chancery and residence in Abuja and the maintenance of our missions in various capitals including New York, Washington, London, Kinshasa, Lusaka, Paris, Brussels, Ottawa, Beijing, Rome, Dar es salaam, Islamabad, the Hague, Pretoria and Windhoek. May I point out that this allocation is not enough. As a Ministry, we have to deal with much more than what we have been given. For instance, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance did not take into account foreign exchange fluctuations that always affect the remittances of funds to our missions. We also have the controversial visa fees which the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance in conjunction with the Ministry of Tourism unilaterally slashed by half from US$50 to US$25 under the pretext that more tourists will come to Kenya. I have said and I will say again that if there is any tourist who will be attracted to this country by US$25, then that is a budget tourist and yet this country should not be looking for such tourists. We must be looking for quality tourists. I urge this House to assist in formulating a policy on how to peg our visas. Our missions have been starved of money because of the issue of visas. As required by the Standing Orders, we have presented our budget to the Departmental Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations. We critically interrogated the budget and the Committee concurred with our request and the issue that we have certainly not been given what we have asked for. Mr. Speaker, Sir, may I mention that in actualizing and achieving our economic diplomacy, we will now realise the dreams in the new Constitution. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will play a very critical role alongside other Ministries such as the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of East African Community. It is important that the new Constitution will give a lot of authority and powers to this House to allocate budget resources. This House, therefore, needs to think and focus on giving more money to the Ministry so that we can pursue greater diplomacy in trying to achieve what this country desires. As we lament about the shortage of adequate funds in the Budget, may I mention that Kenya will continue to play a critical role in the peace, security and stability of this region. In this regard, I want to inform this House of our continued commitment as the Chair of the Evaluation and Implementation of the CPA for Sudan. We are fully committed to see Sudan go to the referendum on 9th January, 2011 that will realise the dreams of the people of Sudan. Finally, this House needs to focus on the issue of Somalia. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of State for Defence and the Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security require more resources to focus on the security issues with regard to Somalia. I take this opportunity to thank the House for the solidarity it showed when terrorists attacked Uganda, causing the death of several nationals of that country including our own national. Mr. Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks I beg to move. Mr. I.E. Mohammed will second this Motion."
}