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{
    "id": 371459,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/371459/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 524,
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    "content": "We are very lucky in this country that we have oil, coal and geothermal resources. In places like Turkana, we have wind power. The wind speeds are astronomical. We have the right resources to make power cheap. I thank the Mover of this Motion for coming up with a very good Motion at the right time. Now that Kenya is at the take off stage and leaders want to make Kenya a middle income country through Vision 2030 in a span of 20 years, this is the main area besides others like security and infrastructural development. Cheap power will make this country grow faster. If you look at big power companies like Escom of South Africa, they produce 40,000 megawatts against 1.5 megawatts that we produce in Kenya. Ethiopia started producing power less than ten years ago. People have complained about the drying up of Lake Turkana because of the dams in Ethiopia. Today, Egypt is complaining about Ethiopia diverting the Nile water, but Ethiopia is not deterred from achieving its objective because in the long-run, the Ethiopian economy will surpass most economies in Sub-Saharan Africa. If we want to create equal opportunities for every citizen in this country and expand the economy so that everybody is comfortable, we should liberalize the power sector. We should not only liberalize Kenya Power, but also KenGen. There should be several power generating and distribution companies. As one Member has alluded, when reforms were done at Kenya Power and there was division of labour, we saw accelerated power distribution. If you leave it to a moribund one big body, it will go down. At the moment, people are stealing transformers leaving villages in darkness. As we liberalize the power sector and bring in more players, I am appealing to Kenya Power to come up with transformers which cannot be targeted by thugs. I understand that criminals target the transformers to remove oil, which I do not know what it is used for. They plunge people into darkness. The people have to wait for weeks before the transformers are replaced. The cost of power in Kenya is very high compared to the cost of power in other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the world. That has made several companies to move to other countries like Ethiopia and Uganda, where power is cheaper. Kenya is losing the edge. It is high time we liberalized the power sector to reduce the cost of power. When we reduce the cost of power, we will conserve our forests. Our forest cover is less than 10 per cent and the Jubilee Government wants to raise it even to 50 per cent.The best way to do it is to provide an alternative source of energy, so that our people in the villages, rural areas and urban poor do not rely on charcoal and firewood. They should rely on other sources like cheap electricity to cook. They will not go to the forest and fetch firewood. That will transform our country. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for any economy to grow"
}