KARA AUGUST 2011 ISSUE.indd

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ENERGY For all intents and purposes, Kenya Power’s prepaid metering project arose out of the fi rm’s need to improve its revenue collection. At least this holds true if the hue and cry from the clients who are connected via the prepaid meters are anything to believe. Take for instance, at the beginning of April a client who did not wish to be named paid Sh270 for 26 units. The same client paid Sh300 a month later and the units had gone down to 25. Early July, he bought 11 units for Sh250.The same amount of money does not purchase similar amount of units for different clients at same time, the client said. Meanwhile, fresh from rebranding, Kenya Power claims that apart from improving revenue collection, the prepaid meters would also improve customer service.“The benefi ts of the project include elimination of estimated bills, elimination of disconnection, enhanced customer privacy, decongestion of the Kenya Power’s customer service centres, and reduced financial losses to the Company due to unpaid bills,” the power fi rm said in a statement on prepaid meters on July 13. So far, the reality on the ground is as far from Kenya Power’s assertion as East is from West. Or rather, customers don’t easily feel the benefi ts of the prepaid metering. The power fi rm carried out the pilot phase until March <strong>2011</strong> when the roll-out commenced. According to the Kenya Power Corporate Communications Department, by June 30, an additional 123,000 prepaid meters had been installed, mainly in Nairobi. Yet with the many customer queries, Kenya Power (KP) has to give answers as to whether customer education ever took place during the pilot phase. Going by the level of dissatisfaction with the prepaid meters, KP noted in the statement the fact that there have been some faulty meters. “...during the ongoing exercise to install prepaid meters, there have been some cases regarding faulty meters, and the company has been taking corrective measures on a case by case basis. Preliminary investigations indicate that the faulty meters detected so far are below five percent of all the meters installed, led, which is within in the internationally accepted cepted range for a project of this size and scope,” the statement reads in part. This is just part of the problem because e anyone who has had the opportunity portun to use ethe prepaid pa meters, in almost all cases, have a bad story to tell. If it’s not inconsistent units for same amount of money, it is likely to be that Kenya Power took unusually u ly too long to credit their accounts, cou leaving them in darkness for hours on end. Many are the unanswered ed questions: • Is Kenya Power forcing consumers s to accept the installation lation of the prepaid meters in their houses? s? • Does a customer have et the chance ce to choose between prepaid and postpaid paid meters, much like in the mobile telephony? • Complaints have also arisen over the quality of KPLC’s prepaid meters is now a nightmare the prepaid meters being installed with some clients experiencing frequent breakdowns. So therefore, will the real Kenya Power please stand up? The firm notes that education for clients cannot be wished away and has set up customer care contacts. “The company now realises that the complaints/enquiries mechanism regarding prepaid metering requires urgent enhancement in order to pre-empt inconvenience and instill confidence in prepaid metering among customers,” the power firm said in a statement. Meanwhile, the blackouts are once again here. And for the next two months or so, major urban centres and industries have to look for alternative energy sources as power rationing is underway. According to the schedule published by Kenya Power, the blackouts will be at the most inconvenient of times — between 6.40pm and 9.30pm. Many are the factories that will have to close early and incur losses. Such losses can only translate in staff rationalization for the businesses to stay afloat. The last time the company rolled out a power rationing programme was in 2000 when drought reduced the water levels in the Seven Forks dams, leading to the shutdown of Kamburu dam. Much as Kenya Power managing director Joseph Njoroge wants to transfer the blame to power generating companies and the Treasury, the power distributor must also take the blame for informing its customers too late into the rationing. Kenya Power has a 90 megawatt shortfall that will have to be taken care of through expensive emergency generators, meaning high power bills for both domestic and industrial consumers. Suspicion that the company was rationing power started late June but Kenya Power vehemently denied that that was happening. At the time, several parts of the country, including the capital city, Western parts, Central and Eastern parts, were experiencing erratic power supply. Migwi Theuri, spokesman for the electricity distributor, at the time attributed the erratic power supply in western Kenya to a fault in one of the machines at Turkwell Power station. As a result of the fault, Kenya Power was not getting adequate capacity for Western region, which is the most affected, he said. As it is now, Kenyans have to adopt coping mechanisms until the imposed blackouts end. 8.
OUR PEOPLE HILLVIEW RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION OUR PEOPLE Hillview Residents Association (HRA) is one of the oldest associations in Kenya having been formed 25 years ago to respond to insecurity challenges, lack of street lights within the estate, deplorable roads within the neighbourhood among other issues. The association is also credited for being among the very first associations to embrace community policing. Through the efforts of the association, Hillview estate has since become secure, has had functional street lights installed and the roads within the neighbourhood have been repaired and there is a greater sense of good neighbourliness among the residents of our estate. However, new challenges of illegal developments, grabbing of public land and questionable change of single dwelling properties to multi-dwelling have escalated. To address these challenges, the association has been engaging City Council of Nairobi and relevant government agencies some of whom we fear could be condoning with a few unscrupulous developers to abet the said malpractices. With the support of Kara, Hillview Residents Association has recorded some progress in the fight against the new challenges but there is still more to be done to ensure that order and good environmental practices are adhered to particularly by the developers. Under the able stewardship of Mr. Dhiru Shah, the association joined hands with Kara and Greenbelt Movement to stop development of 10 residential villas on a grabbed riparian valley within the neighbourhood. The major challenge for the association is the limited finances taking into consideration the fact that the unscrupulous developers are well endowed financially and politically and are willing to spend huge amounts of money to have their way and mute opposition from residents. Another slight challenge is a few residents of the estate are unwilling to support the association and don’t make regular contributions to the association kitty. Lack of supporting legal framework to allow for full recognition of residents associations by Government also makes it difficult for meaningful engagement on public service delivery issues. Finally, Hillview Residents Association would like to encourage residents associations to join Kara, in their numbers, so as to make the Alliance stronger and ensure that those in position of authority are held accountable for their actions in line with Kara’s slogan - “Together, We Will”
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