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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, rural electrification is key to every developed country. In our rural electrification programmes, power is taken to the people but they cannot afford to step it down to their residences. As a country, we might need to see how we can make rural electrification affordable at that level. We should balance the quality of life between those in urban and those in rural areas. This will stop the rural-urban migration. One of the things we might need to consider is making power more affordable in rural areas. In some countries, they have standardised the cost of electricity across the country. In Kenya, the prices of fuel in Mombasa, Nakuru and North Eastern Province are different. In some countries they have standardised the prices, so that everybody within the country gets fuel at the same price. As a country, we need to consider this. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we take power to rural areas we will make our communities access computers. If you look at developed countries, schools in rural areas, children start using computers while in nursery schools. Can we compete with them? Some of our youths go up to university before using a computer. Those are some of the concerns we need to address. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would also like to talk about the proposed Commission. What will be its key responsibility? We are trying to liberalise the energy sector. When doing this, you must have somebody called a \"referee\". That is why we are trying to bring in a Commission. It is supposed to act as a referee between those generating power and the consumers. In some countries, they have gone further and, in their laws, they have matched a certain percentage of the cost of generation to the cost of consumption. They have fixed a price of 5 per cent. If the generator's cost goes up, he can only increase his price by a certain percentage. In this way, they are regulating the energy sector without disrupting it. This makes electricity affordable to the people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I can see that there is a requirement of 15 years experience. Personally, I have not had experience for 15 years. This is a bit discouraging. We need to encourage our young people. If you look at the private sector, you will find that it is being run by many young people. The private sector is being run effectively and efficiently by young people and it is making huge profits. Asking for 15 years experience for one to be in this commission is really disempowering our young people in this generation. Technology is changing very fast and I cannot say that I will be in the same league with my child who started doing computers in nursery school while I started using computers when I left school. The world is developing quickly and the young people are becoming more aggressive. We need to take that into consideration. If you put somebody who finished school in the 1960s in this commission, his ideas may not have changed and he might be thinking in terms of those days. We need to reduce the November 21, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3809 requirement of 15 years experience maybe to ten years, so that if somebody finishes school at the age of 23 years and has work experience until the age of 35 years, he is competent enough to be in the commission. That is something that needs to be looked into critically. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I would also like to talk about the responsibility of the Ministry in this Bill. The Ministry has more of a social responsibility. So, when we say in the Bill that \"the Minister shall\", we are over-working the Minister. Some of these key responsibilities should be given to the commissioners. In other countries, the responsibility of the commission is to analyse data on what is happening with regard to electrification in the country. The commission is supposed to collect and maintain data on behalf of the Ministry. We need to collect data and information to make our commission more effective. That data should be taken to the Ministry and the Ministry should deal with the social issues when it comes to the issue of running the commission. We should re-direct some of these things to the commission. The key issue is that this should be a professional commission. It should be run by professionals. When I talk about professionals, I mean people who have professionalism within the energy sector. These are the people who should be put in this commission. I do not have a problem with the chairman being appointed by the President, but I might have a problem with the issue of having people from the Ministry who are already overwhelmed by work. I have seen that the Ministry has a lot of work and they might not have the capacity to collect data. This commission should be given some work to do. If we keep on taking things back to the Ministry, then the commission will have no duties. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in many countries, when you want to invest in the energy sector, for example, you want to put up a hydro station, you are given a booklet with a check-list and you are shown what you need to invest in the market. You are supposed to tick off the check-list and if you meet the criteria, then you are licensed. If you have not been licensed and you want to appeal, then you can appeal to the Minister. This is one of the things that we need to do, as a country, because a lot of things are put under the table and nobody understands the licensing procedures. We need to have a booklet in the energy sector, so that if somebody wants to invest in a certain league, the requirements are very clear without things being put under the table. That way, we will get corruption out of our systems. Then we will become more transparent. Transparency needs to be key in the running of this commission. We do not want to have a lot of back and forth issues. We want issues to be addressed very clearly without any problem. I would also like to talk about the commission taking up the responsibilities of other regulators. In this document, they have talked about the Minister having to go and say that a certain meter or transformer is required. This is the responsibility of an organisation that is already set up in our country, namely, the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS). Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, once regulations are clearly established by KEBS, why should we duplicate institutions' work? It is the responsibility of KEBS to set up the standards. The commission should set the standards that it requires and then do the job of vetting. I would like to talk about licensing individuals. Today, many people are generating their own power through generators. I do not think we have to the nitty gritty of asking people whether they have licences to generate power in their homes. Once you have a generator which has been approved by KEBS, you should generate power in your homestead without somebody asking you for a licence. Licences should be left for corporate, businesses or companies. That way, we will not get a situation where somebody gets a licence in his name and then calls a corporate company and says: \"I have a licence here, let me sell it to you\". That way, we will get rid of some of these loopholes. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to look into the issue of wind energy. I was in Germany about two years ago and I saw that they have put up quite a number of windmills. Germany and Spain are leading when it comes to reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that they are emitting into the air. They have put up a lot of windflows and solar panels, which are cleaner 3810 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 21, 2006 ways of generating power as opposed to using things that produce more carbon dioxide. What is agonising me is that these developing countries have put up systems to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the air and yet they are coming to the Third World countries and are destroying our resources, especially our forests. You will find that countries like Germany, Japan and China are not touching their forests. You will find ship-loads of timber going out of Africa to their countries. We have not put legislation in place to stop this. They do not realise that when they do this to our countries, it also affects them back in their countries. We need to put legislation in place, so that we can protect our country and our continent. We need to work a great deal with the developed countries within our region. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other issue that needs to be addressed is the issue of decentralisation. I was talking to some experts who had come from Europe and other parts of the world and they told me that one of the mistakes that they made was to put their power lines in one grid. For example, Europeans are campaigning for Europe to be put on one grid. Recently, I cannot remember which country it was, about 10 million people were disconnected because there was a complete failure in the power line. We need to try and decentralise and put smaller hydro plants, for example, the one in Mwingi, and have them interconnected, so that we do not become dependent on one grid. That is something that we need to address. Experts from Europe have told me that they made a mistake by having just one grid. We need to consider having small grids in our country. I would like to talk about the issue of bio-gas. We have been told that from bio-gas you can produce heat and then from heat, you can produce some cooling effects using some other technology. So, we should also consider using bio-gas, for example, for air conditioning in the coastal region and find out how that can help people. I was being told that nowadays we have laws that make sure that buildings are energy-effective. When you are putting up a building in some parts of the world, there are regulations on how you can put up the building, so that energy can be used effectively in that building. You will find that in some buildings, air conditioning machines run endlessly and there is a lot of misuse of power. If there is poor insulation, heat will not be retained. The proper technology on how buildings should be put up should be followed. There are now laws in place to ensure that builders comply with the laid down building regulations as part of our policy when it comes to energy saving. We should also look at how much energy we utilise. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have said my bit and I would like to support this Bill. However, I would like some amendments to be put in place---"
}