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"id": 233917,
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"speaker_name": "Eng. Okundi",
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"legal_name": "Philip Okoth Okundi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this very important Bill which I support. I am a Member of the Departmental Committee on Energy, Communications and Public Works. Our Committee, after spending considerable time looking at this Bill, came up with very detailed amendments. At the Committee Stage, we should be able to have these amendments agreed upon so that we can have a good Energy Bill. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, sometime last year, and March this year, there was a great deal of talk and concern about the preparation of a proper energy policy in this country. I November 21, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3815 would like to congratulate the Minister for Energy for coming up with a Bill that seeks to address issues of energy in this country. When you have a policy in place, then you can produce various Acts of Parliament to enforce the proposals in the policy. That way, we shall also be able to manage well the various energy resources that we have in our country. In this country, 80 per cent of energy used comes from wood fuel, for example, charcoal. It is unfortunate that as much as we depend on wood fuel, we have not managed to properly document information about this. The cost of depending on wood fuel has also not been statistically produced properly. The country is, therefore, spending a lot of its resources in the provision of energy in the area that concerns most of our people, and yet we have not done proper research to get proper information. Electricity provides us with about 18 per cent of our energy needs in this country. This, however, varies a lot because of drought. We are aware that much of our electricity is hydro- generated. Kenya also produces geothermal power, which is also a very good energy source. Oil generated power in this country only covers 2 per cent of our energy needs. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when you have in place an Energy Bill like this one, I am sure that we shall, for the first time, properly address energy requirements in this country and even set appropriate benchmarks of administration in order to develop the energy sector. A developed country like Germany mostly depends on solar energy. We witnessed this when we visited that country with hon. Angwenyi. We were surprised that even though Germany does not have a lot of sunshine, it still depends mostly on solar energy. Here in Kenya, we have plenty of sunshine, but we do not make use of solar energy. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, many of the Nordic countries, for example, Denmark and Netherlands, depend largely on wind power. They have established their energy sector in such a way that energy is produced from various little sources. People willing to produce energy are allowed to contribute it to the national grid and, therefore, compete for price negotiation. So, you will find somebody producing wind energy in his locality, but he is allowed to produce extra for other areas that require energy. In these developed countries energy is also produced from animal products and any type of waste. All the little towns in these countries produce energy from the waste that is churned out. The power is then put back into the national grid in order to reduce the cost of electricity. Energy is a major component if a country is to rise industrially. I am glad that the Minister for Energy is here to listen to what we are saying. I am sure he will put into consideration whatever we have suggested here. I am glad that he will look at this thing very seriously. We need to industrialise in this country. The only thing that will lift up Kenya is for us to take industrialisation seriously. That is where value addition will take place, but we need energy at the lowest cost. That is what is happening in South Africa and Egypt. How do we do this? One way to do this is to look at energy in the widespread aspect of it and have it produced by little and so many other actors. As they come, in the average, the normalised product has to be cheaper and can be regulated easily because more people will have a say. This Bill has very major components. One is the Energy Commission, which is going to look at all the energy areas of our efforts, whether it is from petroleum, wood, electricity, water, wind or solar, and have the capacity. The Bill proposes that we give a chance to the Commission to license its participants. These are crucial things that we did not have in our country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I see you looking at the clock but, unfortunately, I will not be here from tomorrow and so I really want to rush, and I hope you will give me a little more time. So, the Energy Commission is crucial and I am sure the Minister will manage it very well. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to add the area of rural electrification. When we were discussing, we said that let us call it Rural Energy Resources Authority because, really, we are talking about energy but in this country the way we started is that we embraced 3816 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 21, 2006 electricity first. We think electricity is what energy is all about. No! Energy is measured in terms of horsepower. The horse is not electricity. It is just how it pushes lots of energy. So, when we talk of energy sources, we need to see how energy sources can be harnessed even by donkeys. So, I think that, that is a good area which has been managed very well from the Ministry's point of view. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to congratulate the Minister and his staff for having done a very thorough work to get rural electrification to go straight ahead. However, we encountered bottlenecks at its implementation stage from the Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC,) which we need to empower and restructure to give sufficient teeth to guide this kind of implementation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the tribunal is necessary and I think that I really support it because then people can complain and be heard. All I would say is that this Bill is supported thoroughly. This country has reached a stage where I now know that with this Act of Parliament in place, we can do our best to manage energy distribution in this country. If the Minister can encourage, after this Bill is enacted, that in every village if you cut a tree, plant at least four. I know where it has worked. I know of a country where the chief ensures that if you cut any tree for any reason, whether it is dead or not, you plant at least four."
}