Kenya Power in Hot Soup over Fake Power Connections

The number of households currently connected to the national grid stands at 63 percent of the national coverage. The target is to connect 70 percent by the end of this year and universal access by the year 2020. This was a statement by the Kenya Power acting Chief Executive Ken Tarus after leaked information that the company gave the government fake numbers of electricity connection to be able to reach target.

While delivering his State of the Nation address in Parliament, the head of state President Uhuru Kenyatta said his government had added 634 MW of new power to the national grid in a period of one year. In which he said that it has raised the total installation capacity to 2.282 MW.  The Jubilee government has been pushing the power connection narrative as one of their greatest achievements ahead of the next general election.

Pressure from the government to one million new customers to electricity every year made the Kenya Power employees to deliberately fake numbers in order to meet their targets. Power utility bosses spent a lot of money to clear up any mess.

An internal audit revealed that about one million of the new power connections from the 3.6 million new customers could be fake or have never been topped up.

A business newspaper learnt that due to pressure to deliver before the next general election, the Kenya Power employees have been activating meters and passing them as new connections even when not installed in any house.

All prepaid meters come with preloaded units which account for the long time taken by customers before they start vending especially in low income houses. It’s high time that we punish the staffs that deliberately embarrass the company by giving falsified information” added Tarus

Could it be that the power meters were left somewhere in a store or left in a customer’s household without being installed and still the employees report them as new connections?

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Written by Amina Martha.