Protect consumers from Kenya Power

Energy Cabinet Secretary Charles Keter has struck a blow for electricity consumers.

His slamming brakes on Kenya Power’s bid to raise tariffs was the right decision.

Electricity costs are extremely high and burdensome to households and businesses, the latter undermining Kenya’s competitive advantage.

The whole question of price increase is at the core of the power utility’s plan to expand revenue base.

Kenya Power is struggling and staring at deep recession. Already, it has issued a profit warning — the second in as many years — signalling a company in dire straits.

But Kenya Power is its own worst enemy. The company is haemorrhaging from different fronts.

Unfortunately, the only panacea its managers see is a tariff increase, notwithstanding the fact that such an orientation is counter-productive.

For years, Kenya Power and Electricity Company (KPLC) was a monopoly that enjoyed state patronage.

It was not until 1996, and through instigation of international lenders, that it was forced to go through painful restructuring when all economic indicators demonstrated it was on a wrong trajectory.

It was split and new agencies established to deal with regulation and power generation, leaving the company with the sole task of transmission.

A successive reform wave followed under the Narc administration that came into power in 2002, leading to the creation of additional agencies in a process of separating policy from regulation and generation from transmission.

At the legal, policy and institutional levels, a lot of work has been done to turn the fortunes of the company and with the broad objective of expanding access to electricity.

Whereas there has been significant success in electricity supply, with consumer base rising from 1.9 million people in 2011/12 to 6.2 million in 2017/18, Kenya Power is seriously bleeding.

It continues to operate a heavy bureaucracy that does not make business sense.

Operationally, it lacks the agility and dynamism to compete in an environment increasingly inundated with alternative energy sources that are systematically eating into its consumer and revenue base.

For years, the firm was a milch cow for politically connected individuals, who skimmed it to the core.

Although most reforms of the past two decades were geared towards insulating it from avaricious individuals, it remains a den of sleaze.

Its chief executive and several other top managers are in court over graft charges.

But what galls consumers is the propensity of the company to fleece them through incredulous and highly inflated bills, a matter that has been taken to court and also canvassed in Parliament.

Kenya Power should not be allowed to exploit consumers to cover for its failures. Electricity rates are already too high.