HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 187568,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/187568/?format=api",
"text_counter": 232,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Murungi",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Energy",
"speaker": {
"id": 93,
"legal_name": "Kiraitu Murungi",
"slug": "kiraitu-murungi"
},
"content": "Hon. Members have made various valuable comments during their contributions and I promise, as a Minister, that we are going to take those comments seriously. We will build them into our policies, programmes and into the design of our projects. Although I may not respond specifically to each and every contribution, we have taken copious notes and my offices who are there will incorporate them into a document which will be used to guide our operations in the Ministry. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, allow me to respond to a few of the common issues which have been raised by hon. Members. I think the last hon. Member to speak is among the hon. Members who touched on solar energy. The Ministry is aware of the enormous potential that is available in this country in the area of solar energy. The Government is already on the ground and we have decided to connect all public institutions, that is, schools, dispensaries and DOs offices in areas that are far off the grid. As I speak now, we have connected most of the schools in North Eastern Province, northern Kenya, including Turkana and so on. We intend to intensify this project. As I said, we have Kshs300 million in the current Budget. I am consulting with my colleague, the Minister for Development of Northern Kenya and Other Arid Lands so that he can give me priorities for areas where we should invest. We are also aware that one of the hindrances in our moving faster on solar connections is the fact that the solar panels and other components are quite expensive. We are looking for investors, both local and international, to invest in the manufacture of solar panels and other components so that they can be cheaper and, therefore, made accessible to the people of this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, hon. Members, including the Prime Minister also requested the Ministry to look at the issue of nuclear energy as an alternative source of cheaper electricity for the country. I agree with them that time has come for this country to think outside the box. Nuclear energy is being used in developed countries such as Canada, France, the UK and others for electricity generation. Even South Africa is now introducing nuclear energy to its energy needs. I do not see any reason why we in Kenya should be shy. While we were out there in the UK, I appealed to investors to come forward. We are thinking of a project which will cost about US$1 billion and it will generate between 500 megawatts and 1,000 megawatts. That will double the country's electricity needs. As a Ministry, we shall aggressively pursue this line. As soon as we get any experienced partners, we will come back to Parliament so that we do not make any mistake in the selection of this partner. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the question of high cost of energy was acceptable to me. I pointed it out in my opening remarks that, indeed, the high fuel cost in this country has also led to high electricity costs. If you look at your electricity bills, there is an element there called 2252 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 30, 2008 \"Fuel Adjustment Costs\". That is what has driven the electricity bills very high. Right now, we are not able to do very much about it because the Government is only subsidizing. If you look at the Budget, we are giving KenGen about Kshs4 billion this financial year as our own subsidy to the fuel that they use to generate electricity sometimes through the Independent Power Producers (IPPs). So, that one represents the tax elements of fuel. If we did not give that subsidy, electricity costs would be much higher than it is today. So, we are doing our best and we hope that when we adopt other strategies of reducing the fuel costs, electricity cost is also going to come down. However, I do not want to cheat you that we have answers already or that we will do it tomorrow. This is a project that we have to work on. An hon. Member raised the issue of ownership of the power stations currently being managed by KenGen. I would like to state categorically that all the power stations in this country, especially the hydros, are owned by KenGen. They used to be owned by those regional authorities like TARDA and so on, but now they are owned by KenGen. Any disputes between the regional authorities and KenGen--- There are many disputes regarding some contributions which KenGen should be making to the local authorities for what we call \"catchment protection\". KenGen should be making contributions to TARDA so that it can manage catchment protection in areas where there are dams. It is the same thing with the Kerio Valley Development Authority (KVDA). So, the disputes are mainly with regard to those contributions. I have talked to the management of KenGen, the Managing Director is here, and they have told me that they are up to date with those payments. So, there is no question about disputes regarding ownership of the power stations because they belong to KenGen. Indeed, if there are any issues, we should sit down with the Minister in charge of local authorities, who is my colleague in the Cabinet, to resolve these issues internally within the Government. We are not two different Governments. With regard to coal exploration, it is true that we need to enhance that in our country. The Government has been doing this for the last six years, but progress has been very slow. That is why during the financial year 2007/2008, we made a policy decision as a Ministry to involve the private sector in coal exploration and exploitation. As I talk now, we have floated an international tender to get some experts who will help us determine the quality and the extent of the coal reserves within the Mui basement in Ukambani. This is not the only basement where there is coal. We suspect that there could be coal in areas like Chalbi Desert and Taru Desert. With time, we shall also be exploring those areas. As of now, we have intensified our drilling in this particular area. The area is 400 square kilometres, which is about 120 acres of that area. So, there is a lot of scope for private sector involvement, and we believe that we should generate sufficient electricity from the coal reserves when established. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, hon. Members asked why we have not been able to discover oil or gas in Kenya. It is true that there was neglect of the upstream oil and gas sector in this country for some time. Only 31 wells have been drilled since last year. We drilled another one well off Lamu, which turned out to be dry, last year. We expect to drill some more oil wells nest year. The country has been divided into 38 exploration blocks. We have given out 14 of these blocks, and we are inviting international companies to come so that we can allocate the remaining block, so that the entire country can be under exploration. Regarding the Rural Electrification Programme, I said that we have a very ambitious project. We want to do, in the next five years, what this country has done in 110 years since 1897. I need all your support. We have been allocated sufficient funds in this Budget to enable us to connect 200,000 households this year. So, we will be pushing the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) and the Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) to make sure that we have presence in every constituency, and that we enhance what we have already been doing. Hon. Members have already indicated the areas and our design engineers are on the ground. We hope that by July 30, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2253 September, we shall know which projects they have selected and how much they cost, so that we can start. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to request hon. Members to assist us through the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). Sometimes you have our conductors passing over your schools or market. A transformer costs only Kshs300,000 to Kshs400,000; so, maybe you could also support so that we can drop electricity in some of the areas. We hope to meet with you and we also want to create a matching fund between hon. Members and the REA, so that if you produce Kshs1 million, the REA supports you with the same amount to encourage hon. Members to invest more CDF money in rural electrification. So, we hope with all these projects we should do much better than we did in previous years. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, regarding geothermal power, I would like to inform hon. Members that, indeed, in the world Kenya is the second in terms of geothermal reserves. New Zealand is the first! We estimate that we have geothermal reserves to give us 4,000 megawatts of electricity. Right now the whole country is surviving on 1,100 megawatts. So, we can produce four times the electricity we are producing today from geothermal source alone. We have identified various geothermal sites, like Menengai, where we can produce 800 megawatts; Bogoria area, 476 megawatts; Baringo, 1,046 megawatts; Korosi, 700 megawatts and Paka can produce 800 megawatts. All these sites are within the Rift Valley. We are happy that the Government has given us, during this financial year, Kshs4 billion to enable us enhance geothermal exploration within these areas. We are going to drill 12 wells between now and December, and we hope that from 2012, because it will take some time to get the steam out of the ground, we will start generating 70 megawatts per year for five years from between 2012 and 2013 from that area. So, we are also encouraging the private sector to come and team up with the Government, because enormous resources are required to exploit this resource. We expect plenty of activity in geothermal source in the Rift Valley at this particular time. On the other alternative sources of energy, we are now at the top of Ngong Hills. There is money and there is money in this Budget, Kshs300 million, to enable us put a wind plant at the top of Ngong Hills. We expect to generate another 300 megawatts of wind generated electricity at Marsabit. We are also at Kinangop, and we are doing a wind map for the country to enable us to advise the private sector on which areas to invest in wind energy. We are also looking at small hydros and there is money for a feasibility study for various small hydro sites. We are also hoping to attract the private sector investment to small hydros for between one megawatt and 50 megawatts. We have published a feed-in tariff to guide investors on what we shall pay them, because we are going to purchase all electricity which is generated by the private sector through the wind projects and small hydros. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Mr. Mungatana surprised me when he said we did not have any project in his district, because I knew we put in about Kshs100 million in Tana River District last year. But I asked which district he had in mind and then he told me about the Tana Delta District. These new districts have not been gazetted. Indeed, there are some which the Ministry is not aware of, because even the Office of the President has not circulated to us the list of the new districts. I would like to appeal to hon. Members that if you come from a new district where we do not have any projects, please, either write or come to us and advise us that your district headquarters, or any other public institutions within the new districts, are not connected to electricity. The Ministry is going to consider the proposal and, definitely, we are going to move there. We want to be present in every inch of this country. Regarding refinery processing fees, which Mr. Kiunjuri talked about, it is true that we have three top oil companies, which have refused to pay the refinery processing fees. We have been very hard on them. We got them excluded from the oil importation and refining, but we have been taken to court. My Permanent Secretary has been served with orders threatening to commit him to prison 2254 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 30, 2008 for contempt of court, and we cannot discuss this further here, because the matter is pending in court. But we have a struggle with them; we want to level the playing field, so that all the players in Kenya are treated equally, and that they also pay the processing fees to the refinery. So, it is not that we are treating some animals differently from others. As far as the Ministry is concerned, all animals are equal. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally allow me to take this opportunity to most sincerely thank my staff in the Ministry, led by the Permanent Secretary who has been in the Ministry since its inception in 1980s. I would also like to sincerely thank the Chairmen, Board members of the various parastatals under the Ministry, the CEOs and the members of staff for their team work and tremendous support that they have given to this Ministry. It is for this reason that my Ministry was ranked fourth by the performance contract evaluators last year. We hope to work harder this year, deliver more services and move from fourth position to a higher position. With those few remarks, I beg to move."
}