Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1224753,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1224753/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 137,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mwala, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Vincent Musau",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this very important Motion. I first thank Hon. Jane. This Motion touches the hearts of Kenyans in very many ways. Part of the agenda of the Kenya Kwanza Government is to accelerate agricultural production and manufacturing for value addition. Unless we tame the cost of energy in general, which includes both petroleum and electricity, it will be a tall order for us to achieve that goal. At the outset, it is important for all of us to understand what really constitutes a power bill. The monthly power bill that you receive consists of a component that comes out of a charge relating to generation of power, which is charged by the person selling power as the Feed-In Tariff. There is a component of evacuating that power, which is the transmission, now largely done by the KETRACO. There is a component of distribution of power, which is done by the Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation (REREC) and the Kenya Power Company. There are also other taxes that are charged and then you get your final bill. The problem of high cost of electricity is very complicated. It is not just about IPPs. It is a well-calculated system of cartels who have managed to thrive in this business and even tried to use all possible means to frustrate the process of getting affordable power. We have an electricity generator, the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen). To give you quick statistics, last year but one, the total power produced by KenGen was 72 per cent of the total power that was bought by the Kenya Power Company. Of the total power bought by the Kenya Power Company, 25 per cent was from other IPPs. The interesting math is that the 72 per cent of power bought from KenGen cost the same as the 25 per cent of power bought from other IPPs. The cartel system is such that if IPPs were to switch off today, I guarantee you that we would not have power in the country – in as much as they supply us with very little power. They have refined the system to hold us hostage. How? We need to understand that power is not just about generation. The most important thing that we need to consider is how to evacuate the power that we produce. Cartels have devised ways that ensure we do not succeed in evacuating cheap power to Kenyans because that is where the main issue is. I will give you an example. If you go to the dispatcher one evening when we have the highest peak in demand, you will notice that we only have about 5 per cent of power to play around with. We use almost every other bit of power that we can access. You will notice that many times, we have idle power at KenGen that we are not using and at the same time we are buying very expensive power from thermal power producers. You then ask yourself why that is the case. We have what we call on-grid and off-grid connections. There are Kenyans who are not yet connected to the main grid. They need access to power. There has been a deliberate effort to frustrate the connection of those Kenyans to the national grid by frustrating connections by KETRACO that would otherwise evacuate that power and retire expensive power connections. Therefore, while KenGen is selling power to us at a cost of US$0.06 per kilowatt hour, we are forced to at times buy power at over US$0.52 per kilowatt hour yet we still have surplus at KenGen because we cannot evacuate that power to where it is needed. 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."
}