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"id": 209168,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Raila",
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"id": 195,
"legal_name": "Raila Amolo Odinga",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I wholly agree with what Mr. Nyachae said about fast-tracking the provision of electricity along the beaches of the lake in order to prevent continued exploitation by the fishermen. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to address the issue of electricity generation generally. It is very important that if this country expects to industrialise, we must seriously address the issue of expansion of our power generation capacity. At the moment, the installed capacity is about 1,200 megawatts. This is peanut when talking about Vision 2030! The Vision 2030 would just remain a mirage like the others. We were told that we were going to industrialise by 2015, then they pushed it to 2025 and now it is 2030. When they get nearer there, it is going to be 2045. Unless we seriously address the issue of capacity, we will never get there. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to give an example of Nigeria. When my friend, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, came to power in 1999, the installed capacity in Nigeria was 1,500 megawatts. In the eight years that he was in power, he was proud to tell me that he increased it to 10,000 megawatts. If Nigeria can do it, why can Kenya not? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is pointless to be told by donors all the time that we should look at the demand. Demand will come if there is capacity. Most of the serious investors will not come to Kenya when they look at the power capacity as it is today. We are always suffering power shortages. These days we are almost becoming another Nigeria. The situation is that; you are in your House in the evening, but cannot even watch the news unless you have a stand-by generator. We are now being forced to have stand-by generators in all our residences. I do not see any kind of serious plans to quickly fast-track the installed capacity. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have not looked at other alternatives. In places like Marsabit and Lodwar, for example, we did a survey and compiled a wind atlas. In those areas, you can come up with stand-alone systems. In Marsabit, we can generate up to 300 megawatts on wind power. However, there is no serious plan to exploit this kind of potential. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, even in terms of exploration of hydrocarbons, we still have not come up with a serious plan to increase our exploration and drilling. One well for 13,000 square kilometres is peanuts! I believe very strongly that this country has hydrocarbons. However, we are not serious in our exploration. We need to seriously take a look at what the Sudanese have done. In the past, as a former Minister for Energy, I went to Sudan. I took time to study how the Sudanese have methodically gone about exploration. That is the route we should go. The Government itself must be prepared to put in more resources in exploration. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}