Kenya Power Monopoly questioned by Mp Wandeto.
Geoffrey Wandeto, a member of the Tetu party, talks with Citizen TV during an interview on August 29, 2023.
Geoffrey Wandeto, a Tetu member of parliament, blames the nation’s electricity problems on a distribution monopoly.
This comes after a recent 12-hour nationwide power outage that paralyzed activities at important state institutions. Some of the stations affected include the Jomo Kenyatta international airport JKIA in Nairobi as well as business services.
Wandeto described it as an embarrassing situation during Tuesday’s Day Break program on Citizen TV. He added that Kenya’s excessive reliance on Kenya electricity as the only electricity distributor needs to be questioned.
“Everyone is aware of what happened when we resorted to a single phone operator. It is past time to liberalize distribution in its entirety.
Kenya Power Monopoly questioned by Mp Wandeto
“Perhaps the second company would be operating when the first one was down if we had two distributors,” he suggested.
The power distribution sector needs to be made open to a wide range of participants. This is just similar to the numerous independent power producers (IPPs) present in the nation.
Despite the difficulties we have with them, “the same way we have liberalized generation and now have IPP has transferred our concern from generating to distribution. We are controlled by a monopoly, Wandeto explained.
Following the blackout on Friday, KPLC, the electricity distributor, and Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP), the power generator, swapped accusations.
KPLC blamed the power supplier for the mess. They said it dispatched engineers into the wind farm to ascertain what caused the odd outage. LTWP however claimed in a statement on Saturday that it was not providing electricity at the time.
In order to absolve itself of responsibility, LTWP claimed that their system shut off automatically to prevent harm to a national grid that was already overloaded.
The blame game is not the answer, remarked Wandeto on Tuesday, adding, “The main thing is not this blame game. Finding out how to create a sustainable electricity system that can support the entire nation is a technological problem that needs to be studied.
Kipchumba Murkomen, the transport cabinet secretary, fired the Kenya Airports Authority leadership following the KPLC power outage. Among those whose jobs were lost include the managing Director Alex Gitari and General Manager Project and Engineering Services, Fred Odawo.
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Kenya Power Monopoly questioned by Mp Wandeto.