7.1 million Kenyans are connected to the national electricity grid an increase of thirty percent from last year.
According to the latest data from electric power distribution company Kenya Power, an additional 440,000 electricity consumers were connected to the national grid in the period.
The company’s acting CEO Engineer Jared Othieno said that they were committed to increasing their customers by 600,000 every year.
Othieno noted that they were committed to meeting to the government envisaged universal electricity connection by 2020.
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“The government has rolled out countrywide measures to make sure that all parts of the country are connected to electricity and currently we have 7.1m connected to the national grid,” he said.
The CEO at the same time noted that electricity demand during the peak stood at 1,882mw and hence the need to increase production.
Othieno was addressing the press in Naivasha during a four day retreat for the company senior managers.
He at the same time admitted that in the last couple of months they had a challenge with the token system which had affected their customers.
He was however quick to add that this had been addressed after they harmonized their tariffs which had seen customers placed in two groups depending on their electricity consumption.
“We had some challenges last year in the token system which has since been consolidated and the issue of delay has been sorted by our service delivery Safaricom,” he said.
Othieno admitted that there was variation on the amount of units customers got for the same amount of money every month due to changes in fuel cost and user category.
“We have a new app that a customer can use to know his electricity consumption and we have robust customer service keen to address all pending issue of tokens,” he said.
The company acting general manager Business Strategy Engineer Thagichu Kiiru said that fuel cost, foreign exchange and VAT rates determined the cost of electricity every month.
He said that the cost of electricity usually rose during dry periods and hence the variation in the number of units received by customers buying tokens.
“The accumulated standing charges which affected electricity bills were shelved and the cost of units matter from month to month on customers who jumped from one group to the other in terms of electricity connection,” he said.
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