Kenya Power and Lighting Company has dismissed claims that some of its staff, together with officials at the Ministry of Energy and Independent Power Producers were behind the power outage today that plunged most parts of the country without power for hours today.
This is after an announcement mid morning by the company confirming electricity supply disruption which it attributed to collapsed high voltage line.
Kenya Power in a statement explaining that it had lost power supply due to collapsed towers on the Kiambere- Embakasi high voltage transmission power line.
According to the company the claims of sabotage to force increase of cost of power are false and misleading. Kenyans from different locations took to social media to express frustration following the outage.
Images of the fallen Kenya Power transmission line in Dandora in Nairobi were also circulated, with some Kenyans claiming it is said to be part of the cause of the outage .High Voltage transmission towers that had collapsed in Mukuru near Imara Daima Railway station in Embakasi South along Mombasa road were also suspected to be the cause of the blackout.
Some KPLC engineers were cited at the scene undertaking repairs, with fears that the outage might take longer to rectify .
The company however assured that engineers had embarked on repairs on the main line to restore the electricity .Power was later restored countrywide, ending the widespread blackout that started at 10:45am .
The outage comes barely a day after the Ministry of Energy confirmed a 15 percent reduction in electricity cost in order to ease Kenyans from the high cost of living. This was to fulfill a pledge made by President Uhuru Kenyatta during the Jamhuri Day celebrations last year.
In the announcement, Energy Cabinet Secretary Monica Juma said the reduction in tariffs will cover the period between January 2022 and December 2022, and will be reflected in December 2021 bills. The new rates were gazetted following amendments to the Energy act.
In his speech, President Uhuru had said, “The reduction of the cost of electricity will be implemented in two tranches of 15% each, with the first 15% achieved through initial actions focusing on system and commercial losses and this will be reflected in people’s bills in December of this year”.