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{
    "id": 788388,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/788388/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 190,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Kibunguchy",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 294,
        "legal_name": "Enoch Wamalwa Kibunguchy",
        "slug": "enoch-kibunguchy"
    },
    "content": "Let me start by asking the Energy Committee a question. For this Committee to help this country, we must be able to answer one question. Why is energy very expensive in this country? We should be able to answer that question. Is it because of production or the monopoly of the Kenya Power Company? We have to answer that. As you know, when energy is expensive, then the cost of production of goods and services become very expensive. We are not competitive like our neighbors and other countries in this continent. As you know, and I think many studies have been done, there are places like Egypt where energy is very cheap. I wish we could answer that question so that we can help this country to move forward. We can write beautiful Bills and come up with the Energy Bill – and it is nice that we have a Bill – but we must in-build something to be able to help this country and answer the cardinal question of why energy is very expensive in this country. The next issue I would like to talk about is that there has been a lot of talk in terms of depletion of forests. There has been a lot of talk lately in terms of our forest cover being very low. The Deputy President recently banned logging in our forests. In my view, this is a kneejerk reaction. The second thing is that we must understand our people. We must understand the country we live in. We cannot just purport to bury our heads in the sand. The majority of our people depend on wood fuel for cooking and lighting. The majority of our people depend on charcoal for them to cook their food. We cannot run away from it. So, you cannot just wake up one day and say, “we are banning charcoal burning.” Where are we throwing these people in this country? Are we throwing them to the dogs? Who is going to protect the very vulnerable members of our community? I wish we could come up with a programme that would enable us to sustainably produce charcoal, have wood fuel and yet have forest cover in this country. This is what we want to see. We cannot just wake up one day and say, “Now no more.” Where are our people going to get fuel from? Where is LPG in the rural areas? Where is it? So, unless we can look at this thing, we are cheating ourselves. Where do we begin, especially when we talk about forest cover and all these things? Let us begin from the very beginning. It is President Moi who used to say that you move from the known to go to the unknown. We used to have a tree planting day in this country some years back. Not anymore. If you asked me, I would say that we should even have a tree planting week in this country. When we were pupils some years back, we used to plant trees. Not anymore. Our The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}