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"id": 233899,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/233899/?format=api",
"text_counter": 183,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Finance",
"speaker": {
"id": 174,
"legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
"slug": "amos-kimunya"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I rise to support this Bill which comes at a time when we need to sort out our energy requirements. Let me start by congratulating, not just the team that has been putting it together but also our players within the industry; whether you are talking about generation and distribution of energy and the efficiency with which our parastatals are run. We have see them peform well in their performance contracts. We have seen them paying dividends and we now know that if all this money is coming to the Exchequer, I think the question Kenyans will ask at some point is where this money used to go and indications are coming out, whether you are looking at the media, in terms of where the riches were being accumulated. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the energy sector is very critical for our country. Kenya is on the move and we all believe we are getting into that direction. As we look into the future, whether you are looking at the aspirations within the Vision 2030, where we want to take this country in the next 25 years; to make it a country with a higher quality of life which will be joining the ranks of the prosperous nations in the middle-income category, our power will be very critical in ensuring that we can support the growth which we expect to sustain at not less than 10 per cent in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We cannot do that obviously without stable power supply, regulation frameworks and proper incentives that will bring in the various investors. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the time to invest is now and we have tested it. Thanks to the oversight and foresight of the Kibaki Administration. We planned well even in the November 21, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3801 last drought and instead of having power shortages, we indeed ended up with power surpluses that we have been able to share with our neighbours. So, the experience learnt from that is that if we need to sustain our energy requirements in the long-term, the time to plan is now and I believe that this law provides us with the legal framework for purposes of ensuring that we can extract more energy from different sources. We can harness and bring together both the petroleum, electric, biomass and all manner of energy and look at them from the wholistic picture by looking at it from a bird's eye view rather than by the segregated laws as they were. So, I am very happy that at least we have been able to capture all that together. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in terms of our rural areas, again 70 per cent of our Kenyan people derive their livelihood or at least some form of income from operating within the rural areas and I am very happy that rural electrification is taking a different dimension with the REA. We all know how much money has been pumped by our farmers and people in terms of paying for rural electrification supply and this money seems to have disappeared into some hole. We do not seem to be getting enough power and I hope that this REA will disentangle all that and ensure that everyone, or at least the majority of Kenyans including 70 per cent of rural Kenya is opened up for development through provision of clean energy that we can use to uplift their lives and lighting up the towns so that there can be life and people do not have to go to bed at 7.00 p.m or 8.00 p.m. with the resultant impact this has had on population growth and other issues that could be avoided by basically lighting up the rural areas. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, turning to fuel, I am happy that now we will have the framework, not just to sort out the players within that industry, but more importantly, for us to provide the strategic reserves and stocks that we need as a country which will hopefully bring down pressure on the other players to change and to charge fair prices which is not what we are seeing today. I have been on record in appealing to the players in the spirit of self-regulation and promoting it, respecting the spirit of a liberalised industry and I am happy that at least some of the players have come down. We have seen prices come down in the last month by up to Kshs5. Some are still reluctant and I do believe that it is through this framework that we are going to make sure that everyone complies because whatever prices we charge on the pump prices on fuel has a knock off effect on the rest of the production and we could either promote the growth of the other industries or stifle it by the other exorbitant charges. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, while contributing to this debate, some hon. Members mentioned the issue of heavy taxation in the energy sector. Taxation is, indeed, high in the energy sector. However, that is the practice the world over. That is how it should be. Motor vehicles are owned by people who can afford. So, in terms of the very basic tenets of taxation, which include affordability, our tax regime on this sector has passed the test. In terms of the toll it has on our roads, again, we are spending so much money on our current and future infrastructure. If we do not get motorists who are the prime users of that infrastructure to finance its development, we will be failing on our part. We should not be taxing other Kenyans to provide for the development of the road infrastructure. So, I believe that our taxation is fair. In fact, we should think of raising the level of taxation in future to cater for the impact of petroleum pollutants on our environment rather than think of any reduction. So, again, this is a straightforward matter. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, before I conclude, I would like to say something about the appointment of the proposed Energy Commission and its independence. That is an issue which has been coming up frequently in this House. As a House, we should recall the lessons we have learnt from the various independent bodies we have created, including our involvement in approving the appointees. As Parliament, we need to ask ourselves what value we add to independent appointments by the President when we endorse them. 3802 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 21, 2006 We should bear in mind the principle of separation of powers among the three arms of the Government; namely, the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. We should also remember that the buck stops with the President in terms of service delivery by those bodies. The President has a responsibility to the electorate, who elected him to that office and look forward to seeing him deliver on all the election promises he made to them. When, as Parliament, we interfere with his performing of that function, what value do we add, except to bring in political considerations in terms of who gets appointed to what commission and who does not? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I believe that, as Parliament, we should legislate on the qualifications that are required for one to be appointed to such bodies. With the help of the relevant Departmental Committees of this House, we can always establish, subsequently, whether the authorities appointed people to those bodies in accordance with the law or not. I believe that, as Parliament, we should desist from the temptation of playing the law maker, the appointing authority and the referee at the same time, to see whether the person we have vetted and cleared for appointment is doing what we provided in the law. In such a case, we will have interfered with the Executive. I believe that the experience we have got from the independent bodies that are in place bears me out. Their effectiveness and value have not been demonstrated. On that basis, I would support the provisions that are currently in the Bill. Let us define the qualifications of those to be appointed commissioners rather than bring amendments to provide for Parliament to prescribe who should be appointed and who should not be appointed commissioners or, worse still, sit in a Committee of the whole House to vet names and say who qualifies and who does not qualify for appointment as a commissioner. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, that is something we need to agree upon amongst ourselves. As Parliament, we have our own responsibilities and the Government has its own responsibilities. Together, we can only be doing these things for the benefit of our people. So, again, this is a straightforward Bill. I hope that we can give Kenyans the Act they require, by bringing together the various energy sub-sectors, so that we can look at them from one framework. As a stakeholder of forests, with the Aberdares Forest forming a substantial part of my constituency, I am encouraged that we are going to develop alternative sources of energy, with a view to reducing the use of wood fuel in the country in order to protect our catchment areas. That means our rivers will continue to have water in future. Therefore, I would like to urge the House to pass this Bill as soon as possible, so that we can take advantage of the current rainfall to plant more trees in our forest areas. More importantly, we can protect our forests for our future power needs within a sustainable framework. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}