Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 822588,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/822588/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 139,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The debate, now, in the United States of America (USA) around the fire in California--- I saw the President of the USA tweeting about it and complaining about the water use and absence of water sources and so forth. The point I am just raising here is to say that it is important for us to ensure that everywhere in the country is developed fairly. If you look at legislations in this country, we have extremely detailed laws. If you look at the Bomas Draft, particularly the report of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission (CKRC), it was bulky. I had the opportunity to serve in that CKRC as anAssistant Programmes Officer. Kenyans wanted to legislate on everything. We completely mistrust the Government in this country. That is why we must put in place a detailed legislation like this; that everywhere in the country must be developed fairly because we do not trust each other. It should have been common sense. However, in this country, for the time being, we have realised that common sense is not common. Therefore, it is important to put a legislative position that will ensure that fair development of energy in every sector is achieved. The third issue is about investment. I was expecting the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Energy to even raise this issue. Investment in this country has become extremely expensive. Madam Temporary Speaker, in the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project, a lot of money was wasted on useless acquisition of land that was choreographed because speculators rushed to buy it. In fact, an equivalent of insider trading should be established on matters of investments. This is because you find that somebody in Government realizes that the manifesto of the Government of the day is to develop a railway line. He then has an opportunity to work with the Ministry of Roads or Infrastructure to know that the railway line will pass through a particular area. In fact, he has the opportunity to know the drawings from the contractor. The moment they know that a road or railway will be built or electricity will be generated from that area, speculators working with people who have inside information about Government projects rush to buy property along that line. They then wait for the day that that project will begin. The moment there is a ground breaking ceremony, they go and prepare themselves to go for holiday because a property that they bought at Kshs20,000 from a poor farmer in Kibwezi or Kshs50,000 from a poor famer in Taita Taveta County, will now sell to the Government of Kenya for Kshs1 to Kshs2 billion. There was an investigation that was going on and I thought Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. had petitioned this House about investigation of SGR and how much was spent on land. I wish that information could be put in the public domain. I suppose more than Kshs50 billion was used on land compensation alone. The reason why the energy cost is now so high and why we have not achieved what was promised by this Government in so far as increase of energy to 5,000 megawatts, is because the Government is already paying millions of money to the investor every month for the line from Loiyangalani to Nairobi County. At the same time, we are not consuming the energy because some people on the way started putting land at very high cost. In some places, people were demanding Kshs1 million for every manyatta or just more for a house which was built at Kshs20,000. 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."
}