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{
"id": 187529,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/187529/?format=api",
"text_counter": 193,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
"speaker": {
"id": 210,
"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
"slug": "moses-wetangula"
},
"content": " Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute in support of this Motion. Energy, in all its forms is very critical for the growth of any economy. It is even more critical for the growth of our economy given our ambitious programmes to achieve a new status by 2030. Starting with oil, we know that oil prices, the world over, have skyrocketed. We get all sorts of excuses why oil prices have shifted in two years from about US$50 to about US$130 to US$150 a barrel. As a result, the prices of literally every aspect of our life has spiralled at the same level. You need only to look at our electricity bills to see that the fuel cost adjustment is almost 2238 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 30, 2008 equal to the consumption on the bill. This, certainly, does not augur well for an economy that wants to grow. I would like to urge the Ministry to do all that other countries are doing. Unless you produce oil yourselves, every country is moving away from generating power from diesel and other oils. This is because other sources of energy, like coal, have become much cheaper than oil-based generation. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in this country, we are not endowed with good rivers from which we can generate power, but even the few that we have, we have not managed them well, and we have serious problems. I will come to that later. I want to urge that the Ministry of Energy seriously considers looking at alternatives of generating power in terms of wind, solar and nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is proven to be one of the cleanest and also cheaper than the alternatives that we have. The Minister the other day said, while we were in London, that he was inviting investors to invest in nuclear generation of energy. I want to urge him not to even look out of the country, given the amount of money that we saw flow in this country during the Safaricom IPO. If he puts up a programme to generate power from nuclear plants, Kenyans can put in money, invest and get good returns from it. In an ideal situation, we should be talking of energy from hydros, which is relatively cheaper and cleaner. But what do we have in this country? We have river systems that have been completely destroyed by our reckless management of the environment. Whether you are talking of the Tana River system, which has four generation spots, or you are talking of Sondu Miriu, which was recently commissioned after construction through a sovereign debt. Sondu Miriu is under serious threat because of the Mau problem. It is with this in mind that I lend my voice in support of the sentiments expressed by Mr. ole Ntimama and others - and our Prime Minister, who has taken up the Mau issue - that we must bite the bullet. Those who settled in the catchment areas of the Mau, regardless of how they got their title deeds, must be moved out, so that we resuscitate the environment and the water catchment of the Mau. The Mau is not just about Sondu Miriu. Even the famed Maasai Mara wildebeest migration will come to naught if there is no water that flows down the Mara River. That poses a threat to the latest wonder of the world called \"the Maasai Mara\". Rivers flowing into Lake Naivasha, Lake Nakuru and the catchments that form up River Yala and other rivers--- We must manage our environment properly!"
}