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{
"id": 91469,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/91469/?format=api",
"text_counter": 110,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Chachu",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 18,
"legal_name": "Francis Chachu Ganya",
"slug": "francis-ganya"
},
"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I rise to support the Vote of the Ministry of Energy. I congratulate the Minister and his staff for the good work that they are doing in this Republic. I represent a rural constituency and I will speak on behalf of the rural Kenyan. The good work of this Ministry is very visible. This is a Ministry that implements programmes with minimum lobbying from Members of Parliament. Most of our rural institutions, whether primary or secondary schools, health centres, dispensaries or hospitals are today connected with electricity. Our students are studying whenever they want and the doctors and nurses are able to attend to patients even at the heart of the night. In this particular case, I want to really compliment the work of State corporation in charge of this particular programme. The Ministry also conducts a very significant study to identify the rural areas in Kenya that lack electricity. They go far and wide to ensure that as much as possible, they are connected to electricity. When the Minister talked about isolated power stations in ASAL, it is a reality. In my own constituency of North Horr, there are power stations being built. When I walk across the next constituency of Laisamis, I see the same is happening. These are millions of investments in the rural Kenya which were done by this Ministry. I want to commend them for that. Installation of wind turbines in ASAL areas is also a reality. Three secondary schools in my constituency have already been connected to wind turbines and again integrated to the solar energy which they had already installed in the past. All this is done with minimal lobbying from Members of Parliament because the Ministry believes in the work it has been given and its mandate which is to serve Kenyans in terms of connecting the rural Kenya with electricity. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to commend the Ministry for investing in the renewable sources of energy, or what we, environmentalists, call soft form of energy. They have also invested in wind power generation particularly in support of the Turkana wind power. I know a lot of good work is happening in the larger Marsabit in terms of doing the feasibility studies to invest in wind power. I think the larger Marsabit has some of the best sources of energy, if they are exploited. I am sure the larger Marsabit will be included in the 14 sites which were identified by the Ministry to pilot wind power generation. I know that even by March, it had been earmarked because it has some of the best sources of wind power. Having said that, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as an environmentalist, I have reservation with the suggestion by the Minister that they intend to invest in nuclear power as a source of energy. Nuclear energy is considered by environmentalists all over the world as dirty source of power. This country is blessed with so many sources of renewable energy from wind to solar to hydro, geothermal, biogas, wood fuel and even coal which is considered by some of us as a dirty source of energy. With all those forms of renewable energy which are ecologically friendly, socially acceptable and economically feasible, I do not see why as a nation we should go so far to invest in nuclear sources of power. Have we done the necessary cost benefit analysis to see the cost of investing in the nuclear sources of power vis à vis investing in all these forms of renewable energy which God has blessed this nation with? Some nations are forced to invest in these dirty forms of energy like nuclear power because they are not endowed by nature with these forms of renewable energy. Fortunately, our nation is endowed with a lot of wind, sunlight, hydro power, geothermal, biogas and even wind fuel. Because of this, I, personally, think our Government should do the necessary cost benefit analysis to see the cost of investing in nuclear vis à vis investing in these other forms of power like renewable source of energy or what we call soft energy. I strongly support this Vote of the Ministry of Energy."
}