Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 406537,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/406537/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 74,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "many of the countries in this world is because of the cost of power. They go to countries where the cost of power is cheaper because the cost of production becomes cheaper. Mr. Speaker, Sir, what this Report is telling us is that there is an over-reliance on the Government’s financial resources in order to fund geothermal power development. This financial year, the Government only allocated Kshs4 billion to geothermal power development. When the strategy is to develop 5, 000 megawatts and you need US Dollars 20 billion and you just allocate Kshs4 billion, clearly there is a mismatch between the Government’s commitment towards geothermal and what it is actually giving out in terms of resource. It is a pity because we are being told in this Report that because of that, we are losing Kshs50 billion of donor investment. This is what we are being told. This is for the three areas of Menengai, Suswa and Bogoria. The figure comes to Kshs48 billion that we are likely to lose because the Government is unable to provide the counterpart funding of only Kshs7 billion. I have never seen a Government so confused, with all due respect and the Senate Majority Leader is seated here and he needs to advise the Government that you are being offered Kshs50 billion and all you are required to do is to invest your own Kshs7 billion. We have a public expenditure of Kshs1.6 trillion. There are a lot of areas in which the Government has put that Kshs1.6 trillion that are not priority areas. For example, we decided to put Kshs17 billion into the laptop project and yet that project requires power. If Kshs7 billion can give you Kshs50 billion of donor funding, Kshs17 billion would attract how much more money from the donors? It can give you at least three to four times that amount. This is the lack of priorities and these are the challenges we are faced with in the successive governments and this is why this country cannot develop. We see where we are going but we end up going in different directions all the time. This is unfortunate. The Committee does not come out very well in their Report on what action they plan to take on this. Mr. Speaker, Sir, for Suswa, it says that donors want to give Kshs17 billion. The Government was only required to pay Kshs1.5 billion. They cannot allocate Kshs1.5 billion and, therefore, what is happening is that we are losing Kshs17 billion. When you add up all the figures, it goes to the Kshs50 billion. It is unfortunate that we do not seem to be focused. The second thing is that if the Government does not have capacity and has no interest funding that area, why can they not privatize? Why can they not invite private sector investment into this? There are many countries in this world who are ready to put investment in this area. You should give them 100 per cent equity so that they can go and invest in geothermal. For the private sector to go and invest in that area, you have to go through some Government arrangements. In my view, if this area is completely freed to allow investors to completely own those companies that will drill and sell power to the Kenya Power Company, I do not think we would get into this crisis. There is an urgent need for us to develop power. That is why I fully support what the Senator who has seconded has just said, that GDC as an institution should be privatized. If you are not able to fund Geothermal Development Corporation, why would you want to keep it as a 100 per cent Government owned? You have privatized a substantial amount of the distribution of power but the trend globally is that that area of power and telecommunications, areas where you do not have capacity, where the country depends on for competitiveness of business, you need to give it to the private sector. They will be floating shares here through IPOs and generate billions of Kenya shillings even locally from the private sector. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}