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{
    "id": 847379,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/847379/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 237,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kandara, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Alice Wahome",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1700,
        "legal_name": "Alice Muthoni Wahome",
        "slug": "alice-muthoni-wahome"
    },
    "content": "The Chairperson has enumerated several reasons why the regulations should be revoked. I would like to emphasise the fact that when these regulations, though very belatedly came into operation, there was a huge public outcry. One of the reasons was the punitive measures that the regulations were proposing. You have heard from the Chairperson that the penalties that were being proposed, both custodial and monetary, exceeded what the Energy Act provides. So, from the outset, it is obvious that the regulatory authority did not do its homework even to compare the proposals that it was bringing forward with the parent Act that gives them the authority to regulate. There was no public participation. The memorandum failed to actually list where the public participation was carried out and who was engaged. For example, there was a proposal that a Kshs1 million fine be meted upon a woman who has a three-bedroomed house. They were also insisting that a three-bedroomed house must have a solar water heating system. It did not matter the capacity of the person to actually put the solar water heating system in the house. This is really something that requires assessment to be done. When you demand that somebody must put solar energy in his or her house… When we asked the regulatory authority, the Committee was advised that the cost of putting up a solar heating system in one house of three bedrooms is between Kshs150,000 to Kshs300,000. How many people in our rural areas can afford that? When we asked them how they have marked the jurisdiction, that is, the area within which these rules will apply, again, there was ambiguity and lack of clarity as to who will actually be affected. We found that there was lack of public participation. If they had done sufficient public participation, they would have avoided those kinds of ambiguities and impunity measures. We are supposed to be encouraging Kenyans to actually consume energy. It is good that we are talking about solar energy, but it cannot come with that kind of a penalty and cost to people who have already built their houses without knowing that there would be a requirement that you must have a solar heating system. We even think that if they had done sufficient public participation, it is possible that they would have come with an option so that people will have to put solar because they actually feel that there is a benefit. There is no incentive. Instead, the regulations were providing for punitive measures that did not go very well even with the public, hence the huge public outcry. With those remarks, I second the Motion."
}