- Appearing before the National Assembly's Committee on Energy, Muturi said his office needs to know the consequences of renegotiating or terminating the contracts.
- "We are just being told that it will be expensive to terminate the contracts but nobody is telling us how much," he said.
Image: FILE
Attorney General Justin Muturi has demanded that contracts entered by Kenya Power and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) be availed to him.
Muturi said the agreements were signed without the input or advice of the Office of the Attorney General.
Appearing before the National Assembly's Committee on Energy, Muturi said his office needs to know the consequences of renegotiating or terminating the contracts.
"We are just being told that it will be expensive to terminate the contracts but nobody is telling us how much. We must know the consequences of terminating these contracts," he said.
He said his office has been told that a team in the Ministry of Energy is looking at possibilities of renegotiating the contracts with the IPPs or terminating them.
"I ask this committee to demand progress reports from the ministry because I cannot come in before I know what they have agreed. My office does not have the agreements," Muturi stated.
He reiterated that he would only advise the government after seeing the agreements.
"How can you have contracts with no termination clauses," he posed.
In July, the Central Organisation of Trade Unions asked the government to revoke all Power Purchase Agreements with IPPs and negotiate better terms.
Appearing before the Energy Committee of the National Assembly, Cotu secretary general Francis Atwoli said IPPs have to be tamed to address the high cost of electricity.
He argued that the cost of power that IPPs agree with the government has been, in most cases, higher than the cost of electricity produced by state-owned firms like KenGen.
And in April, two Independent Power Producers blamed the soaring prices of Heavy Fuel Oil for the high cost of power in the country.
Thika Power Limited and Iberafrica Power told the Senate Energy Committee on Monday that thermal IPPs are not the reason behind the high cost of electricity as “people may want to believe.”
George Njenga, a director at the two firms, named drought and weakening shilling as other factors contributing to high electricity costs.
On Thursday, Energy Committee chair Vincent Musyoka Kawaya noted their investigations have shown that 70 per cent of power last year came from KenGen while IPPs accounted for 30 per cent of electricity produced.
He however said 70 per cent of the total amount paid by Kenya Power went to IPPs while KenGen only got 30 per cent of the cash.
"How is this possible," posed Kawaya, who is also the MP for Mwala.
A presidential task force attributed the expensive electricity partly to costly Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) that Kenya Power inked with IPPs.
The cost of electricity has been at an all-time high affecting the cost of living and doing business.
The presidential task force investigated the reasons for the high costs of electricity and concluded that Kenya Power's involvement in expensive and uncompetitive power purchase deals with IPPs was the main cause.
According to Kenya Private Sector Alliance, the cost of electricity has risen by over 70 per cent in the last decade, a scenario that has eroded Kenya’s competitiveness.