Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 56322,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/56322/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 290,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ethuro",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 158,
        "legal_name": "Ekwee David Ethuro",
        "slug": "ekwee-ethuro"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, some of us believe that NOCK is being undermined. The good intentions of the Government, through NOCK, are not being realized. The Government itself is not giving NOCK sufficient capacity and support to deliver more products to the market. In America, where they preach freedom, liberation and free market--- Free market has certain conditions in which it can perform. There must be free entry and exit. Information should be available to all players in the market. Even in America, the Government pays farmers to produce in order to sustain a particular income to the households of the farming community. How about a third world country; a country where the major source of energy is kerosene and wood fuel? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this House should give the Minister unqualified support. We still have a problem with the Minister in many other parameters. However, in this regard, we need to support him and ensure that petroleum prices come down. When the international petroleum prices go up, our own outlets increase the prices immediately. However, when the prices come down, you do not see the commensurate reduction in the pump prices as per the reduction that has taken place. That is because there is a lot of monopoly. There are a few players in the market who are dictating the prices and the terms. I serve in the Departmental Committee on Energy, Communication and Information and they even dared to come to us to try to convince us on why they think National Oil Corporation of Kenya (NOCK) should not have a role to play. The role of Parliament and the Ministry is to ensure that public interest has been catered for. That must be supported. Having supported this Report, I am happy that the Minister is here. The issue of high prices of petroleum must be reined in. We want to stabilize them. My colleagues, Eng. Rege and Eng. Gumbo, have talked about a stabilization fund. We can cushion the volatility in the pricing so that the consumers can have particular prices. That is the role that NOCK is supposed to play, and which it has not done properly. I also want to encourage the Minister by telling him that we should also look at other sources of energy. In the County of Turkana, Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) was telling me--- I thought they had an agreement with the Ministry of Energy. A few Ministries have had arrangements with KEPSA. Through the public/private partnership, they are supposed to look at the potential of solar in Turkana. The potential of solar in Turkana is 24,000 gigawatts. However, the Minister is not exploiting that. He is just happy that Turkana County is the poorest in the country when we can produce enough power through solar to sustain even the factories in Meru. The other source which we can provide as a county is the wind power. The other one is geothermal. The Government needs to give more value to the Geothermal Development Company so that, even if God did not give us something on the surface, we have to realize that he does not forget people. He has actually put something below the surface. All that the Minister needs to do is to approach the Geothermal Development Company to do more work. In the Kapedo area, we have a potential of 5,000 megawatts of power that can be produced through geothermal power development. With those remarks, I support."
}