Senate Committee Decry Marginalization of Coast Region on Power Supply Question
Siaya Senator Oburu Odinga in Mombasa. (Photo Curtesy)
By Charo Charles
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.co.
The Senate Committee on Energy wants the government to ensure that an ongoing KSh 2.9 billion power electrification project for the Galana Kulalu Food Security Project brings maximum benefit to the locals.
Siaya Senator Oburu Odinga who is the chairman of the committee led his team on a fact finding mission at the Baolala Rural Electrification Renewable Energy Corporation (REREC) sub station in Malindi Sub County, Kilifi county where he urged the contractor to put the interest of the local communities first upon completion of the project.
“One of the issues we have noticed is the lack of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the project, which was initially not included, and the supply and connection to the people is put as the last priority. In our view it would have been pushed a little higher and given more priority,” he said.
Oburu was accompanied by members including Senator Edwin Sifuna of Nairobi, Danson Mungata of Tana River, Turkana’s Ekomo James, and nominated senator Beatrice Ogola.
The REREC project engineer James Muriuki said that KShs 300,000 had been set aside to connect surrounding communities to the grid by the end of the project. They include, schools, hospitals and other facilities.
“The project has four components. The first one involves putting up a 45 MVA, 220 CA6 transformers in lot one. Then we have 54 kilometers which is divided into two lots, that is 27 kilometers each of 66 KV lines, and at the end is where we are putting two by 23 MVA 66/ 33 KV transformers.
“We will then have the metering station where the investor will be getting the power from, and Kenya Power will be charging,” Engineer Muriuki said.
Sifuna said that they will demand that the government and proposers of power projects in the country to prioritize investment in power to 13 counties that are not connected to the grid.
Sifuna added: “The engineers are telling us that once the power gets to Galana Kulalu in Tana River it will come back and I am just wondering why he can’t start from here.
“The reason some of us in the energy committee have been tough on people who come to propose power projects in this country is that we have at least 13 counties that are not on the grid.
“So, if an investor comes to talk to us as members of this committee, we would expect them to tell us that phase one is to get the 13 counties to have power”.
Mungata on his part complained that the coastal counties, especially Tana River and Lamu, were lacking private large scale investments because of low power supply.
“Our six counties in the coast region have gotten this one project but equity demands that we get more projects in this area.
“Without power you cannot industrialize; we have heard Kenya manufacturers association telling us as Senate committee that they cannot put up their projects anywhere, from Malindi going all the way to Lamu because there’s no power,” said Mung’atana.
Nominated senator Beatrice Ogola on her part called on investors to put local community priorities first before implementing projects.
“We are very impressed and this is a testament that energy is an enabler in development, but we are calling upon the designers of projects to know that we must take in the immediate interests of our people into consideration when projects are being designed. As we think about the macro provision of power to the irrigation project, we must think about the immediate design of how the people get the power, so that they are able to work with the projects that we have, not only here but across the country,” said Ogola.
