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{
    "id": 1155108,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1155108/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 550,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kipipiri, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Amos Kimunya",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 174,
        "legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
        "slug": "amos-kimunya"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Let me start by thanking you for bringing sanity back to the House and guiding this Session. I thank the Members who have been contributing to this. It is one of the most enjoyable sessions we have had with no shouting. Everyone is just focused. I think that is the future of this House. I thank the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Administration and National Security, not just for the contribution he has given today, but for the work he has put and his team on this Bill. Hon. Sankok usually leaves about 6.00 p.m. but today he has stayed on to contribute to this Bill and has been quite focused on it together with others who came in. I am not sure whether I want to respond to this because the fuel crisis has been termed as a disaster. It is important that we recognise that there is a big global disaster on the wider energy not just on fuel and natural gas. Inflation in Britain is at its highest since 1992 occasioned by the high fuel prices and high gas prices. It is the same in the USA. In Kenya, we took this decision to subsidise fuel and we have been pumping money to it. We have managed to keep the prices at just about Kshs139 per litre. Just last week we were in Uganda with the Hon. Speaker. I got very concerned when we had this discussion on fuel here. Some Members of Parliament said that fuel is cheaper in Uganda than in Kenya. We took it upon ourselves to physically look at pump prices in Uganda. If I recall well, the price of petrol in Uganda Shillings was 6,200 and 4,600 for diesel, give or take Ushs50 which is really not much. When you convert that, you will end up with petrol at Kshs169 and Kshs149 for diesel. There is a whole Kshs30 between the Kenyan and Ugandan prices. With our borders being porous as they are, you can also imagine one of the disasters we are going through—the people closer to the border are fuelling in Kenya then going to sell it in Uganda and making Kshs30 per litre. It is because we are subsidising. These are the challenges we have. Every time you interfere with market forces, through subsidies and Government action, but in a limited scale without the wider East African region and with the free movement of people and vehicles, you would expect that part of Kenya’s taxpayers’ money will be used to subsidise consumers in Uganda. I am sure the same is happening in Tanzania. I do not want to get into that debate. It is something that we just have to note. I am sure the people responsible will be looking at what to do going forward. I take the point that the honourable engineer Nduati raised about debt. We can see part of that. It also goes to the wider disaster preparedness. In fact, when Hon. Sankok talked of fuel, I thought he would be talking of the disasters we have always seen with fuel tankers. It is one of the most amazing things. We have had the disastrous Sachangwan fire. We thought Kenyans had learned. I do not know what happens to Kenyans every time there is an accident involving one of those fuel ferrying trucks. They rush with their jerricans to go and scoop some fuel without thinking of the disaster that awaits that kind of thing. That is Kenya for you; that is our people. They are high risk-takers. I believe that is why we are very vulnerable as a society and why we actually need this kind of a disaster risk management authority in place. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}