Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 371885,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/371885/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 389,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Okoth",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 12482,
        "legal_name": "Kenneth Odhiambo Okoth",
        "slug": "kenneth-odhiambo-okoth"
    },
    "content": "Thank you hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I rise to support this Motion. Let me begin by wishing our Muslim brothers and sisters in this august House and across the Republic of Kenya a happy Ramadhani, a Holy month, as they get into fasting. I also want to contribute to this Motion and say that without electrification and powering up all corners of our country, we will never achieve vision 2030. Electricity and access to cheap, affordable and reliable power is what is will attract direct foreign investments. That is what will make sure that even local investments are successful. When we look at direct foreign investment into our country, the cost of power and lack of reliable power in our country make our country a very low priority destination for investment, yet our human resource base is just fantastic. We have highly educated people; we are one of the top five most literate nations in Africa. We have many smart and well educated people. Who are even better than South Africans, yet we cannot bring industries and investors in Kenya because the cost of doing business is very high; that is hurting us. The direct part of that is this lack of reliable and affordable power. I think this is also killing our regional dominance and success in the East and Central Africa region. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Kenyan economy is the engine for this region. We export a lot of products to South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania, yet our industries could be doing much more and creating even many more jobs for our young people who need these jobs, if they have reliable power. I would like to support this Motion and say that, we need to take very critical steps and also look into the following direction First we should make sure that we have power that is for corporate and industrial use that is affordable and usable in a manner that attracts foreign investments to settle and create jobs here, and help us to stretch our influence in the market in this region. We are already the leaders in this region, but we must not be comfortable just because we are running in a race against dwarfs. We must really be the economic giant of this region comparable to other economic giants. A good example of this is a country like Argentina whose population size, agricultural profile, mineral resource base and everything are precisely the same as Kenya’s, yet the quality of life, per capita income and status in the world of Argentina are much higher than ours. The key ingredient and secret of the success of Argentina versus the success of Kenya is simply because the Argentinean Government has invested in cheap power production, distributed it and is accessible to all Argentineans. That really changes things. The second thing is I would like to say that we really must push for local available sources of power as has been mentioned; these are geothermal and solar power. Let us"
}