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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I wish to second this Motion and congratulate my colleague and the Vice-Chairman of our Committee, hon. James Maina Kamau, for moving the Motion. The issues raised, particularly the matter of ownership of KPLC are important. Considering the interrelationship between KPLC and the key players in the sector, I think it is important that this matter be sorted out so that we avoid situations where KPLC and especially, private companies using public investments to generate profits for their shareholders. Having said this, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think the issues in this sector are big. Sometimes, because of occasions like this, it is important really, to recognize where our shortcomings are. Over the years, the geographical construct of Africa has identified Kenya as a key economic player in the East with South Africa in the South, Egypt in the north and Nigeria in the west. But availability of energy and economic power have a near direct relationship. That is why it is really superfluous to claim that you are an economic power house when you cannot even afford adequate power for your people. If we look at this construct down in South Africa, for example, they are currently generating about 40 gigawatts of electricity. It is expected to go to about 60 gigawatts in the next five years. In Nigeria, it is 6 gigawatts and it is expected to go to 10 gigawatts in the next five years; Egypt is at 22 gigawatts and it is expected to go to 40 gigawatts in the next five years. But with us here in Kenya, we are currently generating just a paltry 1.5 gigawatts of electricity. In fact, the amount of electricity used in Kenya which currently stands at just well under 10,000 gigawatts hours is much lower than what they use in some urban centres in Africa, for example, Johannesburg which uses about 20,000 gigawatt hours of electricity per year and Cairo which uses about 16,000 gigawatt hours of electricity per year. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with such a low availability of power, it sometimes becomes difficult to expect the kind of performance that KPLC is expected to give to the public because it happens that they cannot sell what they do not have. Therefore, I think it is important that the efforts at identifying new sources of power in this country which are commendable, need to be stepped up. We know for a fact that the geothermal potential in Kenya currently stands at between 7 and 10 gigawatts if you consider all the potential wells in Nyanza, Rift Valley and up in Turkana. But even here, we have had a problem as the Mover of the Motion said, we have the Geothermal Development Company of Kenya (GCD) which is essentially tasked with harnessing steam which can be sold to KenGen to generate power. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we know that even between KenGen and GDC, there have been problems because some of the assets that GDC is supposed to use for exploration and generation of steam are still not clear, whether they really belong to the GDC or KenGen, which is partially a private company. With these concerns, sometimes it worries us that the GDC may not live to its full potential unless these undercurrents are brought to the surface and a clear demarcation brought between these two vital public companies. But having said that, I think the opportunities for supply of Kenya are enormous as it is readily understandable, any process that produces large quantities of heat, high pressure gases or even large quantities of steam and all combustible wastes as a by-product will always readily afford an opportunity for economically viable plans to do what we call co-generation of power. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think the huge potential for co-generation of power in Kenya needs to be looked at. Here, I have in mind, for example, the sugar factories, the tea factories and all the major industrial installations in Kenya which really have huge potential for co-generation of power. All we need is to have policies that can make investment in this promising sector attractive to potential investors and even the general Kenyan public Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think even as we exploit these resources, we have seen, for example, there is a major co-generation plant in Mumias. I think we should not forget our social responsibility to the people who sit along the supply chain. We do not want to see a situation where Mumias uses large quantities of baggase to generate huge volumes of power, take all the profits and forget about the farmers. I think we need to be sensitive to the fact that this is a supply chain and all players need to benefit from these products. I also tend to think that time has come for this country to make bold steps in exercising our options in so far as providing adequate energy for Kenya is concerned. My own view which I think is shared by the Ministry of Energy is that civil use of nuclear energy can solve most of the problems that we have with our power supply in this country. Having said that, I think it is also incumbent upon the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) which is the regulator in the sector, to address the problem of erratic power bills. There is a lot of concern with some power meters and consumer installation. For example, you will find in some old estates in Eastlands, the meters were installed more than 50 years ago. How can they be accurate? How do we know that the bills that we are being given reflect our true consumption? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the ERC and KPLC Limited, therefore, must have a programme for regular calibration of meters that have been in use for a long time, including replacement of what can clearly be considered as defective and inaccurate meters. Finally, I think for some time now, the Kenyan public have had to deal with these supplementary distributors of power called Independent Power Producers (IPP). The IPPs were brought in to supplement and give us emergency power when our normal generation sources go down in capacity. It is, however, important that these agreements are normally signed between private business people and the people of Kenya. I think it is the right time that the contracts were made public so that the people of Kenya can scrutinize them to see to what extent they are favourable to our needs as consumers of power in this country. With those remarks, I beg to support."
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