Speaker Wetang’ula Hosts European Union Parliamentary Committee On Development
National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula pose for a photo with the visiting EU parliamentarians
By Our Correspondent
Worth Noting:
- ‘’As a country, the EU is our major trading partner since most of our farm produce like coffee, tea, flowers, fruits and other horticultural products go to your markets and we also buy a lot of our machinery from you,’’ he said.
- Speaker Wetang’ula said that Kenya had of late also gone through a lot of challenges that the EU can offer a helping hand.
- ”We have been ravaged by the worst drought ever in the past forty years where people have lost their lives, domestic animals have died and we have also lost hundreds of wild animals with the latest report indicating that over one hundred elephants died due to the drought that has been caused by issues of climate change,” he said.
National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula on Wednesday said that the European Union (EU) remains a beacon of hope for member states over their political, economic and social policies.
Speaking yesterday when he played host to the European Union Parliamentary Committee on development, Speaker Wetang’ula lauded the European Union for its continued efforts to ensure there is peace and encouraged free trade and tailor policies to work towards the benefits of its members.
The Speaker noted that the European Union has done a lot of beneficial works in Kenya mostly in support that come in the form of grants and has greatly helped in building of roads, highways, water and environmental programs among others.
He noted that the team’s visit to the country would cement and strengthen the relationship between Kenya and the European Union.
‘’As a country, the EU is our major trading partner since most of our farm produce like coffee, tea, flowers, fruits and other horticultural products go to your markets and we also buy a lot of our machinery from you,’’ he said.
Speaker Wetang’ula said that Kenya had of late also gone through a lot of challenges that the EU can offer a helping hand.
”We have been ravaged by the worst drought ever in the past forty years where people have lost their lives, domestic animals have died and we have also lost hundreds of wild animals with the latest report indicating that over one hundred elephants died due to the drought that has been caused by issues of climate change,” he said.
He said that the country is grateful that the rains are back and will help farmers produce enough food for the country. He indicated that there have been measures put in place to try mitigate the adverse effects of climate change including tree planting.
”Our forest cover is also very low at ten percent but our President William Ruto has committed to ensure that in the next five years we plant over fifteen billion trees so that we can green our country and increase our forest cover to thirty percent something that will help address the issues of climate change,” he said.
The Speaker also observed that issues of peace challenge caused by retrogressive politics had rocked the East Africa Community with Kenya and Tanzania being the only countries that have not been hit by these instabilities.
”Our EAC countries of Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and currently Congo where Kenya and Uganda have sent troops to assist have been adversely affected by lack of peace in the past, something that the EU should be in the frontline to assist,” he said.
The Speaker noted that EAC is a replica of the EU but needs more attention from the EU to help it grow.
“We have our East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) that hasn’t picked up well. We are advocating that its members be elected from member countries and have it more active to address the EAC issues,’ he said.
He said that even as Kenya remains the guarantor and peacekeeper enforcer in the EAC region for years it has not lacked its own fair share of internal challenges.
However, the Speaker assured the delegation that Kenya is stable and that the noisy political activities being brought by the opposition are not a threat to the Nation’s stability since it happens in many countries and that is part of democracy.
”We as Parliament would like to have a very close cooperation and relationship with the European Parliament. My colleagues who work in various committees will work towards that,” he said.
The Speaker asked the delegation to look at the issue of many immigrants being mistreated as they try to get to Europe from Africa.’
“Today we have lots of African migrants coming to Europe suffering on the boats in the Mediterranean at the hands of criminal gangs and instead of you opening your borders you are closing them even more, that is not right,” he said.
”I encourage you as EU Parliament to liberalize the migrant’s entry into your country legally because some of these migrants are fleeing from poverty, hunger, unemployment and other social injustices and who knows fifty years down the line Europeans might be running to Africa over the same reasons am sure we might not close the borders for them,” he added.
The Speaker encouraged the delegation to open the borders and deal with the immigrants in a more humane manner and ease the process of entry to Europe.
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