The Kenya Power Company has explained why it revised the itemised token message sent to its customers.
The company's board chairperson Joe Brenda Masinde said this was informed by the high cost of paying for the texts which she said was entirely borne by the firm and which was contributing to losses.
She noted that they used to spend up to Sh250 million annually to pay for it.
“This was just a matter of shillings and cents. We realised what Kenyans wanted to know is just what their token is, the rest of the breakdown was worthless,” she said.
Masinde argued that smartphone users would receive two long texts while those using mulika mwizi phones get up to three.
“We were looking ways of saving money quickly and so as a board we sat and decided to reduce the long text and by so doing we saved Sh100 million back to the pocket of the company.”
In the current format, customers only receive the token purchased, the date of purchase and amount of units, the fee charged, and the token amount.
In the old SMS, customers got a message which also contained fuel energy, forex, Epra and WRA, REP charges and inflation adjustment.
While addressing the press, Masinde, however, said the token information can still be accessed by dialing *977# or calling 9771 and submitting the account number as the information is not hidden.
At the same time, the official exonerated the company from any blame over the hiked power tariffs saying this was the role of the Energy Petroleum and Regulatory Authority (Epra).
According to the official, the rate at which they are selling the power is what has been allowed by the regulator adding as a company they have never had a review for the last four years.
“We realised that we were selling power for cheaper than we were procuring. The reason why it was cheaper in 2017 unlike today is because of the dynamics,” Masinde said.
However, to ensure this is lowered the official revealed that a multi-sectoral approach between the Ministry of Energy, KPLC, KenGen and other power producers has been employed.