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{
    "id": 210083,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/210083/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 159,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ethuro",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Planning and National Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 158,
        "legal_name": "Ekwee David Ethuro",
        "slug": "ekwee-ethuro"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I agree with you. Let me proceed because I have two more minutes to go. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to invest in solar and wind power. These are resources that are in abundance where we come from. I would like to challenge the Minister for Energy. When he says that 80 per cent of our people do not have access to modern energy, we need to start a crash programme to reduce that percentage. We should be talking of 20 per cent of our people not having access to modern energy. To that extent, I support the hon. Members who called for an increased budgetary allocation to this Ministry. However, my challenge is the Kshs20 billion that we have given them. Let us see productivity in this Ministry. Let us get efficiency. A month ago, I was in Denmark leading a delegation on the National Vision and Benchmarking Standards. For the last 15 years, Denmark, as a country, has grown in its productivity without any single increment on their energy consumption. So, it is a fallacy to imagine that we have to increase energy consumption in order to determine our economic growth. Let us invest in energy-saving technologies. The entire globe appreciates the manpower and the skills of Kenyans. We have it all and it can be done. We can compete favourably with any country anywhere on this globe. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have been talking about oil exploration. I remember, one day, when I was in the university, the former President came to talk to us. He had just returned from a visit to some of those oil wells. He told us, \"We have found it!\" That was in the mid 1980s. Almost 20 years later, we cannot say anything. We can only discover a dry well in Lamu. We need to be told the exact story. I agree with hon. Lesrima when he says that God cannot be so unfair to us that you can find oil in northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, places which we border, and yet there is no oil in our country. There must be something. We need to find this out and make use of it quickly enough. I would like the Minister for Energy to ensure that even small towns such as Lokichoggio, Lokitaung, Lokichar and Kalakol have enough electricity in order to allow businesses like those ones generated from the Youth Enterprise Development Fund to be exploited by people in these areas. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with my passionate appeal, and I know that the Minister has listened to me, I beg to support."
}