Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga has called on African countries to diversify their sources of energy because of the high cost of fossil oil and the unreliability of hydro- power due to climatic changes.
Odinga said that after the energy crisis of the seventies most prosperous nations started investing in new and renewable energy sources including bio-fuels and bio-diesels.
He lamented that African countries had been left behind and faced major challenges as they tried to move towards self sufficiency in energy because of resistance from multinational who have vested commercial interests.
He gave an example of Kenya who conceived the idea of investing in renewable energy sources to reduce importation of crude oil and started constructing two major ethanol producing plants in the seventies but managed to complete only one plant as the other was not completed even after the government pumped in 67million dollars, a colossal amount of money then.
He blamed this on interference from multinationals that were keen to protect their own stake.
“Multinational corporations did not want this project to succeed as it was going to reduce the amount of crude oil imported in the country ensured that this project did not succeed,” he said in a statement issued in Nairobi on Thursday.
He made the comments as he addressed the African Prime ministers and other country representatives in Vienna, Austria.
Odinga is later expected to head to Denmark, Copenhagen for climate talks.
Source African Press Agency
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