Gideon Moi launched the Senate Energy Committee’s Local Content Bill at an event at Nairobi’s Strathmore University. The bill runs to just over eight pages, and its content is as slim as the length suggests. It covers the basic elements of local content – supply of goods and services, training and skills development, reporting frameworks – but only very superficially.

Its most surprising proposal is that local content requirements will be determined by the Cabinet Secretary in consultation with the Senate Energy Committee, which will also act as the oversight authority for local content.

The arrangements are both less detailed and, in terms of oversight, contradictory to those made in the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Bill 2015. The Petroleum Bill recognises the importance of special provision for legal, financial and insurance services. It had even reached the stage of having local content regulations drafted. Though these were stringent, and not welcomed by industry, there was at least something to talk about. However, Gideon Moi’s Local Content Bill proposes that the regulations be prepared by the Cabinet Secretary, in consultation with the Senate Energy Committee, which he himself currently chairs.

But perhaps more alarmingly, the bill proposes that oversight of local content be undertaken by the Senate Energy Committee – a role ascribed to the Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority proposed in the Petroleum Bill. Given the nature of Kenyan politics, such an arrangement will present a serious corruption risk to companies.

But how likely is it to pass? The bill does a good job of raising Gideon Moi’s profile in the year before the general election, but probably little more. The bill is so technically superficial that it is never likely to be passed. A similar private members bill in the Senate, the Natural Resource (Benefits Sharing) Bill, has been stuck in parliament since 2014. Yet, even legislation sponsored by the Ministry itself, such as the current Petroleum Bill, can get stuck in procedure – it is currently with the Attorney General. When basic legislative processes don’t work, attempts to use it to increase a political profile will happen.