France to help Kenya on nuclear plan

France has accepted to help Kenya develop its nuclear potential, Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said.

Mr Odinga, who jetted back in the country on Monday night, said world leaders had pledged to support the government’s efforts to harness nuclear energy.

He announced that the country may soon install the first ever nuclear plant to bridge the local energy deficit after the French government consented to a proposal to jointly develop a facility in Kenya.

“We have opened talks with the French to establish a nuclear energy reactor in the country as we also pursue expansion of green energy production to facilitate industrial development” he said.

He said France through the French Development Agency (DFA) had increased funding to geothermal related activities at a cost of Sh540 billion ($ 7.2 billion) to boost energy supply in the local market.

Mr Odinga said the better part of the grant was earmarked for the expansion of the Ol Karia geothermal plant whose impact was crucial for the country’s quest to realise the Vision 2030 dream.

He said the trip in France, China and Switzerland presented a forum to market the Kenyan dream to the developed world ahead of the global conference on climate change scheduled for December in Copenhagen.

The PM, however, challenged leaders of the developing nations to push for tangible and reasonable funding on environmental conservation initiatives to realise the desired impact of the activities.

He said the Sh7.5 trillion ($100 billion) British Premier Gordon Brown had proposed for mitigation of environmental issues in the third world ahead of the conference was insufficient.

Mr Odinga urged like minded nations to put up a spirited fight in advocating for a reasonable resource allocation to restore the fragile ecosystem to reverse the effects of climate change.

“Copenhagen is a do or die situation because it create a for a where nations can push for reasonable funding that can secure the adaptation and mitigation of the environmental concerns in developing world” he said.

The PM cited the Mau complex conservation initiative as a case in study which required sound financial resources at later phases to amicably restore the degraded water tower.

He took the opportunity to dispell fears that country had in recent past appeared leaning to the East at the expense of countries in West and insisted that cooperation with China was in good faith.

Mr Odinga put records straight that the partnership the government had with the Republic of China was mainly of infrastructural, cultural, educational and trade ventures for the mutual benefit of both nations.

He said the Chinese input in local economic growth could sway the outcome of the vision 2030 dream in a big way because the bilateral engagement treaded on key pillars of development.