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{
    "id": 139307,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/139307/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 341,
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    "content": "country’s control and, therefore, there is need for urgent and increased investments into affirmative energy sources such as geothermal, wind and solar, to satisfy our energy requirements. Furthermore, hydro-electric power generation has also proved to be unreliable in the recent past due to the persistent poor rains that resulted in dams not having sufficient capacity of water necessary to generate electricity at full capacity. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another detrimental result of a reliable energy is the environmental degradation that results from a large segment of the population resorting to charcoal and firewood to satisfy their energy requirements. This is partly caused by the high poverty levels in the country. That means that a large segment of the population can neither access nor afford petrol products and electricity, to meet their daily energy needs. There is also a new shift by several industries especially the tea industry to use firewood as the force in industrial production in the past few years because of unreliable and high cost of electricity. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Ministry of Energy has had a net reduction in overall expenditure and major reduction has been in the electrical power development. However, employee emoluments are set to increase in almost every department despite reduction in overall allocation for the Ministry. The overall allocation for the Ministry may not lead to the expected more productive output as a result of energy saving because most implements are designated to areas of recurrent consumption as opposed to intervening in making energy more accessible. To put that into even clearer perspective, the allocation to Rrural Electrification Programme is down by Kshs2 billion. Another example is geothermal exploration which has marginal reduction in overall allocation while operational expenses in the same are set to double. The reduction in allocation for this financial year is therefore surprising especially given the high import bill on fuel that the country has had in the last few years which has significantly eroded Kenya’s foreign exchange reserves. I therefore, urge the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance to consider increasing allocations to this Ministry next year. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, under Sub-Vote 302, Head 435 – National Grid Systems, allocation for development of the national grid has an increment of almost Kshs3 billion which one would suppose should reduce energy costs by upgrading the grid system thereby reducing losses of energy in transmission. I am happy to note that the Government has established a new company called Kenya Electricity Transmission Company under the Ministry to undertake new transmission lines and therefore provide a major relief to consumers as electricity tariffs are not expected to rise. The Committee also noted that the Kshs3.1 billion has been allocated to KenGen to subsidize the cost of emergency power generation capacity of 146 megawatts and acquisition of another 80 megawatts to address the current drought related imbalances between demand and supply. A further Kshs5.3 billion has been proposed to be spent by Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) to upgrade the power distribution system. The Committee and Kenyans want to see the expected results, that is, no blackout or increase in electricity tariffs. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, under Sub-Vote 302, Head 436 – Geothermal Resource Exploration, the Committee noted that Kshs5.464 billion has been allocated to drilling of more geothermal development wells for steam production. That will be done by the newly formed company; the Geothermal Development Company"
}