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"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to give my contribution to this very important Vote. First of all, I would like to congratulate this Ministry for having done a very good job in the last two years or so. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I think hon. Members will agree that out of all the Ministries, the Ministry of Energy has, probably, done the best work. If all Ministries did the same or even 50 per cent of what the Ministry of Energy has done, this country's economy would, probably, grow by more than ten per cent and not the six per cent we talk about. Ministries that are pulling this country backward must be encouraged to emulate this very important Ministry. Mr. Speaker, Sir, my only disappointment is that this Ministry has been allocated very little money. When a Ministry is doing very well and spending all the funds allocated to it, it must be given additional funding in recognition of its work. There are so many Ministries in this country that return half of the funds allocated to them to Treasury. Therefore, when a Ministry, like this, exhausts its budget, there must be need to give them additional funding. The Minister for Finance, who has seconded this very important Motion, should have seen the need to give them additional funds. However, it is not too late! The Minister could still consider doing the same during the supplementary budget. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) should have been operational by now. While I appreciate that the officers in the Ministry can competently do the job, if the REA was established earlier, probably by now, they would have been given adequate funding. If you look at this Budget, there is no money allocated for the REA. There is no good reason to have not allocated funds to such a critical authority. I think it was known well in advance that the Bill was moved in this House sometimes during the course of the year. Therefore, the Minister for Finance, in his wisdom, should have provided for some money for this very important authority. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I have looked at the money that has been allocated to the Rural Electrification Programme (REP). The amount has been substantially reduced. I do not understand the logic behind the fact that funds which were previously in the tune of Kshs5 billion have come down to about Kshs3 billion. There are so many programmes that are going on. Most of them are at completion stage. It would be very important that all these projects are completed before the end of the financial year. I know there are shortages of material everywhere. We have shortages of poles, wires and so forth. This should be taken care of. I know that when you start such ambitious programmes, there are bound to be some logistical issues. Nonetheless, I think this should be sorted out quickly. I see many Questions on power provision being asked by hon. Members in this House. I think such Questions should not come to Parliament. Mr. Speaker, Sir, every hon. Member of Parliament has been given an opportunity to identify certain areas that they deem to be priority areas in their constituencies, so that they can be given electricity on a priority basis. To the extent, they are asking these Questions in the House. At times, I wonder whether we should be asking those Questions. If you are given five opportunities, give them to the areas you think deserve electricity most. Funds cannot be given to everybody at the same time. We should stop asking such Questions in this House. We should submit programmes that we want done and those that can wait. We, as a country, cannot do all programmes at the same time. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Minister has given that our consumption is about 1,050 kilowatts and production of about 1,155 kilowatts. As we continue to expand in this country, I do not think we are matching it with the same investment. We must invest quite a substantial amount of money in diversifying the sources of energy. August 8, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3063 Mr. Speaker, Sir, while there is a lot of rain in this country, we still hear power rationing. To me, it does not make any sense that we can ration power when we have floods all over the country. The problem could, probably, be that there could be rains in some parts of the country and not others. Therefore, we should diversify as much as possible, so that we can reap when there are rains. Geothermal energy is the cheapest source of energy all over the world. It is long-term, but expensive to invest. However, I know if we could invest money in geothermal energy in some parts of Rift Valley Province, that can be sufficient for a very long time. I know that a lot of funds are required, but, in the long run, this could be this country's saviour. I think we should go out of our way to borrow money for this important sector. Mr. Speaker, Sir, another disappointment in this Budget is that money that has been earmarked for alternative sources of energy is very little. It is only Kshs20 million. I do not know what Kshs20 million can do in developing alternative sources of energy. This Ministry does not take alternative sources as a very important resource. If you go to many developed countries, they have developed other sources of energy because they know that petroleum is very expensive. If you are going to depend on petroleum and funding additional diesel generators, we would be talking of Kshs2 billion plus. That money could easily have been available to develop some other wells for generation of geothermal energy in Rift Valley Province. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the fuel should be done away with. I saw the Minister say yesterday that it is better to have expensive power than disruptions. I agree with him. We should fast-track the development of these geothermal wells. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you go to developed world, they have ethanol from coal products. We produce a lot of coal in this country to the extent that we do not have sufficient market. I think the Minister should go out of his way to visit some of these countries like the United States of America (USA). They have advanced technology in the form of using coal to produce ethanol which is then mixed with petroleum to produce the much needed petrol to run their vehicles. I think the blending of the same has been seen to be very cost-effective. The Minister should, through his budget, provide for some funding for his travel, so that he can travel to other countries. He has provided quite a substantial amount of money for the development of data and information. But he has allocated very little money for him and his staff to travel to different parts of the world, so that they can see for themselves how these resources can be tapped. There is no point in re-inventing the wheel, because it has already been invented by other people. Therefore, there is merit that, that technology can be transferred to this country. Mr. Speaker, Sir, as I said before - and the Minister has clearly pointed out - the world all over has now moved to unleaded petroleum. Some of our petrol stations still sell regular and diesel with very high sulphur content. However, some of the oil companies will tell you: \"You know, we are producing diesel with very low sulphur content.\" That is not very good news. Basically, all over the world, nobody is using diesel with sulphur content of over 1 per cent. It is unfortunate that in this country, our refinery is still unable to process products that are of acceptable quality. I think the upgrading of the Kenya Petroleum Refineries is of paramount importance. At one stage, I was afraid in this country, that while we claimed that our products met international standards, what we were producing in our petroleum refinery was way out of the required international standards. I said at one time that if somebody went to court to challenge the Government for allowing Kenyans to use low quality products, that would pose a very big problem. Therefore, products like regular, in my view, should not be produced in this country. I think Kenya is the only country, probably, in the world that still uses regular. In fact, even Uganda and Tanzania do not use regular. There is no merit for using it. It is just a matter of tradition. There are certain people who believe that their vehicles will run very well on regular. It would be important if the Ministry of Energy informed them that regular is an outdated material that does not assist in any 3064 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 8, 2007 way. It may be cheaper by one shilling, but if you are buying ten litres of fuel, you will just have saved Kshs10 at the expense of the environment and your engine. Therefore, I think the Ministry of Energy should go out of its way and, probably, ban the use of regular in this country, because it is of no economic value to Kenyans. It should also go an extra mile to ensure that the diesel that is used in this country has very low sulphur level. Of course, sulphur has been known to be very harmful to our societies. Given the state of our motor vehicles that are driven on our roads, they produce a lot of smoke; meaning that the diesel has not been burnt properly and, hence, emitting a lot of sulphur to the environment. The Kenya Bureau of Standards must do its job according to the law. If it cannot enforce the law, it has no business being in the market. Mr. Speaker, Sir, sometimes this year, or last year, we passed the Energy Bill that provided that if one adulterated petroleum products, he or she would face very high penalties. But I do not think that, that law has been enforced. There are still cases of adulteration all over this country. We must ensure that people sell safe petroleum products all over this country. Mr. Speaker, Sir, while the Minister talked of Vision 2030, it would be very important--- In fact, the Ministry does not need to allocate a lot of money for study. I am talking of Kshs24 million that has been allocated to collect data. That can be done in-house. The officers in the Ministry of Energy have this information. If you want to project for the next ten years or whatever period, all you need to do is collect data for the last four, five or ten years and use it to project into the future. I do not understand why the Ministry would want to spend Kshs24 million to carry out a study on information that is already available. Mr. Speaker, Sir, when I used to work for the National Oil Corporation of Kenya (NOCK), which is under the Ministry of Energy, we used to provide a lot of information to that Ministry. I do not know whether they used it, but I remember that, that information was very vital, because we could access the world market. The basic requirements for the Ministry to achieve Vision 2030, is for it to ensure that there is enough storage in Mombasa. The reasons we have frequent fuel shortages in western Kenya are two-fold. First, there is inadequate storage of petroleum products in Mombasa. Two, the Kenya Pipeline Company, which was deemed in 1979, to operate for a long time--- In fact, I thought that additional pumping stations were to be put up sometime in future, but, we reached that level a bit earlier. All we need to do is to put up additional pumping stations. I know that, that effort has been made. But we should not wait until the problem catches up with us. I think we should look forward, so that we can put up more pumping stations in advance. In fact, we should have reserve pumping stations in readiness for any eventuality. It is very shameful that people--- At one time, when I was in Eldoret, all the fuel stations were dry. I almost failed to come back to Nairobi. Given that this country is endowed with a harbour in Mombasa, it would be a shame if we cannot supply petroleum. That would be understandable for countries like Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, but not Kenya. This is because we have a pipeline and also all the vessels can dock in Mombasa without much problems. Therefore, if we have problems in Kenya, they impact negatively on the image of this country. If we cannot supply petroleum products to Uganda and other countries, they will lose confidence in this country. If we want to achieve the objectives of the Vision 2030, let us continue developing more storage facilities. In fact, if the Minister can care to look at how much money this country pays as demurrage to the international companies, because the vessels have to queue at the Port of Mombasa, because we have only one berth--- I think it is incumbent upon the Government to ensure that it expands the berth, so that, probably, two or three ships can dock at the same time. Currently, if one cruise ship docks in Mombasa and stays for three or four days, the other ships have no alternative but to wait. As we all know, crude oil has to undergo some processing. The vessels that carry crude oil are given priority, but the white products could easily be available so that it can be pumped ashore. It is important that we set aside funds to expand the port, so that two August 8, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3065 or three ships can dock at the same time. We should build adequate storage facilities. If we do so, we will save this country and the Great Lakes Region a lot of money, given that we are now expanding into regions. Because the storage capacity in Tanzania cannot even accommodate one ship, we could even be supplying the entire region, to the extent that the Port in Tanzania could shut down, just like it happened with her refinery. They could not move on because Kenya was too efficient for them. Therefore, I welcome the initiative that has been undertaken by the Government to ensure that, I think, a Libyan company was going to invest in the refinery. Let them also look for funds so that we can have another company investing to ensure that more vessels can dock in Mombasa. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the liquified petroleum gas (LPG) facility, since I came to this Parliament, has been budgeted for year in, year out. It is taking too long! There is no excuse that Kenyans who require LPG will have to wait. About two or three weeks ago, there was a shortage of LPG all over the country. It almost became a crisis that most of the companies, which supply cooking gas, experienced shortages. The reason is lack of adequate storage. The reason why this country, Kenyans, still depend on a lot of wood fuel is not so much that LPG is very expensive. Many oil companies have substantially reduced the price for the gas cylinders. If you compare the prices for gas cylinders a few years ago with what they are now, the prices - due to the competition that is in the market - have substantially come down. However, we need to be assured that there will be continuous supply of this product. For us to have that continuous supply, the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), which the Minister said has been given the responsibility of spearheading this project, should expedite it. I am sure there are many companies willing to put in money. If there is any market that is potentially good, it is the LPG market. This country has been identified as one of the countries that use the lowest amount of LPG compared to their population. Given our income levels, if the economy is growing, there is no reason why we should not encourage Kenyans to use LPG. Therefore, I would want to encourage the Minister that this facility is required like yesterday. We needed it yesterday so that Kenyans, who want to use the LPG, do not have any fear that, indeed, there could be shortages."
}