On Saturday evening, from the dusk hours of around 6.25 pm, the country plunged into darkness following a major power outage, which Kenya Power attributed to a system disturbance.
Barber shops, beauty parlours, eateries, and other service centres were limited in their services, while some were forced to turn to their standby generators for electricity.
Businesses in Nyanza, Rift Valley, Nairobi, and Mombasa were left counting their losses while reporting that the power outage frequency was becoming unsustainable.
Predictably, Kenyans immediately took to social media lamenting the blackout, prompting Kenya Power to issue an alert saying it had lost bulk power supply to various parts of the country due to a system disturbance.
While apologizing for the damage caused, KPLC assured customers that it was working on restoring normalcy.
The last time the country experienced an outage of this scale was in January this year. Kenya power explained that the outage, which affected Nairobi and 6 other regions, was part of the company’s scheduled maintenance.
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In January last year, the country experienced a similar blackout following the collapse of electricity towers in Imara Daima, which the government blamed on vandalism of the towers and accused some KPLC officials of being behind it.
Consequently, 9 KPLC officials were arrested and arraigned on claims of economic sabotage.
On Thursday, a parliamentary meeting aimed at examining the audited accounts of KPLC for the last three years ended prematurely after officials of the power-distributing firm were dismissed.
The public investment committee on commercial affairs and energy termed the responses by Kenya Power’s acting Managing Director Geoffrey Muli as generic, demanding a new report in two weeks.
Other matters that were up for discussion included contractual dealings, criteria for the selection of power suppliers, and the high cost of electric power tariffs in the country.
David Kosing, the committee chair who also doubles as Pokot South MP, lamented that KPLC, despite being a monopoly, continues to make losses yearly despite repeated promises from the company management saying they have implemented measures to take the company back to profitability.
The company’s earnings for the six months ended December 2022 plunged to a 1.1 billion shillings loss. In the period under review, Kenya power’s operating profits fell by 54% to close at 5.7 billion shillings as the company’s cost accelerated by 19.5% while its revenues remained flat at 87 billion shillings.
Kenya Power makes Sh. 1.1 billion loss in six months
Kenya Power’s loss comes at a time when energy sector stakeholders have applied to EPRA for a review of tariffs, seeking to cut back on households enjoying the least cost tariff by 1.9 million beneficiaries.
Kenya Power’s proposal to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) seeks to review its tariffs upwards to enable it to cope with what the power distributor says is the high cost of acquiring and distributing power.
Should the proposal be approved, the so-called hustler businesses – particularly the Jua Kali sector – will likely feel the pinch.
It would also hike the already high cost of living as manufacturers would treat the increased electricity tariffs as pass-on costs and add them to the prices of shelve commodities.