Kenya Power has been put on the
spot for inordinately keeping thousands of Kenyans who have paid
millions to be connected to the
electricity grid in the dark.
A new audit has cited the case of 2,200 projects where Kenyans have paid more than Sh147 million. Another 10,078 projects of Sh2.7 billion were also behind schedule, some of which started more than 15 years ago.
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has flagged the delays saying the projects were yet to start as at the time of the audit.
“This denied customers electricity supply and at the same time denied the company revenues,” she said. The auditor reprimanded Kenya Power management for not monitoring customer connections.
She said the delays contravened the company’s customer charter on new connections. “In the circumstances, the effectiveness of controls in place to monitor customer connections could not be confirmed,” Gathungu said.
Kenya Power customer service charter provides that connections, depending on the type, should be completed within seven to 28 days.
Gathungu said she was not convinced by management’s explanation of the delays, some of which are historical.
Kenya Power said the projects did not take off due to lack of materials, late acquisition of wayleaves and abandonment by customers.
It also cited cases of premises not being ready for connections and customers requesting refunds or transfers to other sites.
In a speech during the company’s AGM on Friday, Kenya Power managing director Joseph Siror said the company is on the right track in dealing with the backlog. He said the company connected 447,251 new customers against a target of 400,000.
“The accelerated connectivity was supported by availability of critical materials during and subsequent deployment of a rapid results initiative,” Siror said.
He allayed the fears that the challenge of delayed connections would persist.
“Initiatives will be implemented to enhance customer experience by addressing significant issues such as supply outages, ease of access to services and turnaround time for new connections,” Siror said.
According to the auditor, records at the company as of June 30, 2024, revealed significant delays in execution of projects.
“In the circumstances, the customers may not have realised value for money spent on the projects and the objectives of the projects may not be achieved,” she said.
The audit findings exposed threats to President William Ruto’s commitment and pledge to connect thousands of families to the mains grid as part of his legacy plan.
The President has on many occasions cited plans to connect more households to electricity. In May, Ruto said the government had secured more than Sh27 billion to connect 280,000 households under the last-mile connectivity project.
He said his administration is working on a similar project with Sh22 billion to be sourced from the African Development Bank.
State statistics say for the past 10 years, electricity access has grown to 76 per cent, translating to averagely 9.6 million Kenyan households.
Even so, a number of customers are still grappling with delayed connections, forcing some of them to resort to alternative sources such as solar.
Kenya Power was also found without a robust project management framework, including regular progress monitoring, root cause analysis for delays and corrective action plans.
“Management indicated that the projects are on different levels of execution and delays are occasioned by lack of materials in prior years preceding the year under review,” Gathungu said.
She flagged instabilities in the power supply network saying the interruptions exceeded the internationally-accepted levels.
The Auditor General said the system Kenya Power uses to measure the average number of power supply interruptions over a specific period has telling reports.
Kenya Power uses the System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) to record data, with low values indicating better performance. But during the year under review, the actual SAIFI was 47.54 per cent, exceeding the set annual target of 32 per cent. The target is stated in Kenya Power’s strategic plan.
“The significantly high interruptions index indicates inefficiencies in the company’s power distribution network,” the report said.
Gathungu said the measures implemented to mitigate interruptions of power supply had failed. Kenyans have recently raised concerns about rampant blackouts, some nationwide.
The government has attributed the disruptions to an ageing power infrastructure, saying it has no cash for the mega projects.
A separate audit of the company tasked with electricity transmission Ketraco recently flagged several delayed power lines.
As such, the country has idle power at various production stations.
Gathungu is further concerned
that Kenya Power is yet to deal with
employees accused of fraud-related
activities.
