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"speaker_name": "Mr. Namwamba",
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"legal_name": "Ababu Tawfiq Pius Namwamba",
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"content": "These issues include the following: one, that the cost of fuel in this country has risen to levels that are simply unmanageable and unaffordable for the majority of the people in this country. The pump price for kerosene has jumped to Kshs92 today. You may want to note that Kshs92 is essentially half the average daily labour payment for an ordinary labourer working at a construction site who takes home an average of Kshs200. If this young person labouring at a construction site for a whole day takes home Kshs200 and has to spend half of that money on a litre of kerosene which is not even sufficient to light the House for the evening and to cook a meal for the evening, you start to understand the enormity of this problem. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, you will also want to note that the last census did indicate that four million Kenyans directly use kerosene in their households across the country. So, the price of Kshs92 per litre of kerosene has literally pushed four million Kenyans across this country to a scenario where they can hardly survive. Of course, the cost of petrol has also gone up considerably. A litre of petrol is now retailing at Kshs113 while that of diesel is at Kshs107. The domino effect of this is that it has pushed up the cost of production considerably to the extent that the cost of a two packet maize meal flour now retails at between Kshs87 and Kshs133. That is an increase of Kshs30 in a period of just three months. This is an average of Kshs10 per month increase. This can be extrapolated across all the basic essentials like sugar, wheat flour, rice and bread. The other thing is that this has hit the cost of travel and transport considerably. Today, for you to travel from Nairobi to western Kenya, you have to pay an average of Kshs200 to Kshs300 more than usual. The average cost of travel to western Kenya is now Kshs700 up from Kshs400 to Kshs500. Only yesterday, the Matatu Owners Association raised the fares of travelling in matatus in this town by 30 per cent. This can be extrapolated again across the whole country. Even a trip to a place like Nyeri which could be considered fairly close to Nairobi is now costing a traveler an average of Kshs400. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, manufacturers are warning that this scenario is likely to get worse. Even players in the travel industry have also warned that this can only get worse unless we do something about the cost of fuel. There is, therefore, reason to believe that we, as leaders, have failed our people. As fuel prices spiral skyward and the cost of basic necessities spin out of control where are we expending our energies? Where are we engaging our brains? Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, it is sad to submit that we are chasing the wind in trying to outdo each other politically instead of addressing ourselves to finding a solution to this problem. The problem which we must focus our energies on is summed up in the saying that: âfailing to plan is planning to failâ. We have failed to plan, therefore, plunged ourselves into this problem. The three devils that this House must fasten its mind around and find a solution to are the following: one, is the problem of energy policy incoherence. There is obviously a problem in the energy sector. With me here is a report handed to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Energy in February, 2006. This report was prepared by the Inter-Ministerial Taskforce that was set up in 2005 to investigate cartel-like behaviour of major oil companies in Kenya. This taskforce was constituted by the head of the Public Service, Amb. Francis Muthaura with authorization of the Cabinet. This taskforce did an excellent job. Indeed, leading experts in this sector agreed that if the Government had implemented some of the policy measures recommended in this taskforce report some of the problems we are facing today would not be confronting this country today. Among the policy proposals of this report was included, unbungling the industry to ensure that companies do not play both wholesaler and retailer in the market. It also included a proposal for a price stabilization fund. This is a fund that was supposed to be established with proceeds from the petroleum levy to deal with volatility, something akin to stabilization of prices in the market. The question I wish to put to the Government, specifically the Minister for Energy who is here today, is: Why has the Government not implemented this report prepared by a taskforce that spent public resources and coming up these excellent proposals? Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the second problem that we must address is the problem of inefficiency in the corporate governance of institutions that are in charge of the supply chain of oil products. Here, I am talking about the Kenya Oil Refineries, the National Oil Corporation of Kenya (NOCK) and the Kenya Pipeline Corporation (KPC). There is a problem in these institutions. Their problem is partly contributed to by the micro-management by the Ministry of Energy. By micro-managing these institutions, the Ministry of Energy has not allowed them to grow and be able to play their rightful role. To such an extent that even new institutions like the Energy Regulatory Commission has become more of a burden than a solution to this problem. The third devil that must be slain is the devil of grand corruption. I submit with absolutely no fear of contradiction that today Kenyans are paying the price of grand corruption in the energy sector. There are many reasons for this, but unfortunately because of time, I may not go into the details of this. But I have sufficient information with me here which includes activities of NOCK in the month of February whose attempt to import oil using wheeler-dealers and competitively so burdened this country with stock of fuel whose disposal today is part of the reason why prices of fuel have shot up. That is because somebody somewhere is determined to profiteer while ordinary Kenyans are suffering. Until and unless we slay the vampire of corruption in the energy sector, we will continue to be encumbered by this problem. I have details on this and I am ready to table them before this House. Let me quickly go to what I believe could be the solution to the problem."
}