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"id": 187819,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/187819/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Musila",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Defence",
"speaker": {
"id": 94,
"legal_name": "David Musila",
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me this opportunity to support this Motion. I want to applaud the Minister for Energy and his staff for the excellent work that they are doing in ensuring that electricity is supplied to the rural areas. If there is any Ministry that is diligently delivering services to the people of Kenya, it is the Ministry of Energy. I say this because during the last 45 years of Independence we have seen that the rural electrification programme had stalled, and it is only during the last five years that the Government took up the issue of electrification. When you go round every corner of this country, you can see that the Ministry of Energy is working. Congratulations, Mr. Minister! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am very concerned about the issue of alternative energy. We know that, and the Minister has repeatedly told this House the same, that the Government is doing everything possible to explore other sources of energy. He has mentioned wind as an alternative source of energy for this country. However, we have not seen much of what the Ministry of Energy is doing to utilise wind as a source of energy. I gather that there could be projects of this nature in some parts of North Eastern and Eastern Provinces, but I think we have not done enough to explore this source. In countries like Japan and Europe they use wind energy quite a lot. I know that we have abundant wind in this country, and see no reason why the Ministry of Energy cannot put as much effort as it is putting in rural electrification programmes to ensure that we get cheap energy from wind. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, also on the same note, I do not think the Ministry is doing enough to use solar energy. I say this because this country has plenty of sun and perhaps it is God-given. We should not be spending so much money looking for expensive sources of energy when we have a free source namely, solar energy. I want to say that the Ministry of Energy has not done enough to provide Kenyans with solar energy. Having said this, you know it is the policy of the Kenya Government and, indeed, the Ministry of Energy has said this many times, to supply energy to all secondary schools. However, most of them, particularly in Eastern, North Eastern, Rift Valley and parts of Coast provinces are very far from the national grid and, therefore, it will be very expensive to take a line to a secondary school which is perhaps 200 kilometres from the national grid. Therefore, it will make a lot of sense if we would have independent energy supplies based on solar to individual secondary schools. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I know that the Ministry of Energy has identified certain schools to benefit from this project and I want to ask him to especially consider Mwingi July 29, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2155 District secondary schools because a lot of them are very far from the national grid and, therefore, will take many years before they get power. He should supply them with solar energy so that we can catch up. You know that most of these schools have never even made use of computers and if we are to wait until we get the normal energy, I think it is going to take many years. So, I urge the Minister for Energy to give special preference to schools which are in remote areas and supply them with solar energy. Every year, he should, at least, supply five schools in every district and very soon we will be able to cover the entire country. During the time that the Minster was moving this Vote, he talked about coal exploration in Mwingi and Kitui districts and he said that they have drilled many holes and to quote him, he said: \"Good quality coal has been identified\". For many years, the Ministry of Energy has been exploring coal in Mui Basin of Mwingi District and I am sorry to say that every year we have allocated money for the exercise of exploring coal in Mwingi District and up to now we have not seen much. They just keep on drilling endlessly. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, considering the cost of energy today, it is time the Ministry of Energy moved very fast and perhaps identified a private investor to explore coal in Mwingi District. Our people are longing for the day the Ministry is going to show us an investor who is ready to mine the coal so that we can benefit from this resource because it is there in plenty. They have already told us so and yet people are languishing in poverty. Kenya needs resources to generate power and for other uses like cement manufacturing et cetera . I do not know how many years it is going to take before the Ministry of Energy comes up with a way of exploring this coal. So, I am going to ask the Minister to especially consider accelerating this process because it has taken so long. There are machines drilling every year. Every financial year we are allocating money but we do not see the end of it. I think it is high time the Minister became more serious and mined this coal and saved this country from the high cost of energy that we are experiencing at the moment. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in conclusion, I want to say what I said last year that I have not been able to understand why we have not been able to find oil in Kenya. Uganda has oil. To the north, Ethiopia has oil. To the south, Tanzania has struck some gas and they are likely to find oil soon. How come that Kenya can be so unlucky that it can be surrounded by countries with oil and we do not have oil? I want to submit to the Minister for Energy today that we have oil and that he should move fast and make sure that this country gets oil so that we can improve our economy which can never be improved so long as we depend on imported oil. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}