HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 1103932,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1103932/?format=api",
"text_counter": 398,
"type": "other",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Madam Deputy Speaker, there are many things that have been said before this House; I do not want to repeat them. I appreciate the material that was placed before this Senate in regards to the pump prices of oil and the cost of electricity. They have been mentioned here. In relation to importation of oil are several taxes and levies that are normally imposed. They include the Excise Duty, Merchant Shipping Levy, Import Declaration Fee, Roads Maintenance Levy - which many people have talked about - the Anti-adulteration Levy, the Petroleum Development Levy, the Petroleum Regulation Levy, the Railway Development Levy and the Value Added Tax (VAT). If you put these things into totality, petrol stations in essence become tax collection centers. According to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA), the cost of landed petrol, super, diesel or kerosene is about half what you pay for at the petrol station. In effect, petrol stations are then very important as tax collection stations. Madam Deputy Speaker, the same goes to electricity. There is the fuel cost, inflation adjustment, forex adjustment, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Levy, VAT and the Water Resource Management Authority Levy. There is even a levy for the rural electrification programme. All these costs put together, put Kenyans in a category where we are paying more than we need to pay for electricity. I wanted us to look at this thing in a non-political way. I see the Senator for Murang’a here. The farmer in Murang’a and the farmer in Siaya are in exactly the same position despite our politics. The impact of these costs is the same for a man from Ukambani, who is staying in Kibra and a man from the Coast, who is staying in Mathare. There is no way they can run away from those costs, as we have discussed here. Madam Deputy Speaker, the other day, I was looking at the example of simple things that we may take for granted. Over the period of the last eight months, the cost of three tomatoes was about Kshs10. If you go to Mathare or Kibra, one tomato will now cost you about Kshs10. As I said yesterday, for somebody who is earning Kshs15,000 and you find what that household needs and the costs that have risen out of electricity and fuel costs, you will find that their situation is completely unbearable. In future, Parliament must be very cautious when we pass legislation on matters to do with power and fuel. This is because they are costs that cut across production, consumption, supply and distribution. It is, therefore, important that we are very careful not to overburden our citizens. Madam Deputy Speaker, as we think of how to manage public affairs in this country, it is issues like these that should be under discussion. How we are dealing with this issue should be under discussion. Right now, in the Congress of the United States of America (U.S.A.), within the Democratic Party itself, they have arguments going on about the infrastructure programme that President Biden wants to pull through as one of his legacy programmes. People are having various inputs in that debate."
}