Chumo: Ex-Kenya Power CEO who is praised and vilified in equal measure
Dr Ben Chumo. ILLUSTRATION | STANSLAUS MANTHI
What you need to know:
Born on July 11, 1956, the former Kenya Power boss hit the age of 60 last year.
Dr Chumo joined Kenya Power in 1986 as a human resource officer.
He was in July 2013 appointed acting CEO following the promotion of Joseph Njoroge to serve as Energy PS.
During his tenure, he doubled electricity connectivity, and debts too, as the efficiency ratio deteriorated and illegal connections rose.
It was a rare exit party: Ben Chumo showed up with his wife at his last Press briefing as Kenya Power chief executive as the curtain came down on his three-year tenure.
The first Wednesday of 2017 was Dr Chumo’s last day at work. And to escort him home, Mrs Chumo was at hand to lead the executive into retirement.
After his attempts to secure a second three-year term were thwarted by the Industrial Court, Dr Chumo had no option but to leave Kenya Power. He had begun his three-year term at the utility firm on January 7, 2014.
On the hot afternoon of January 4, 2017, Dr Chumo handed over the reins to Dr Kenneth Tarus, who was hitherto the general manager in charge of finance at firm.
Dr Chumo’s performance at corner office was a mixed bag: electricity connections doubled but the electricity retailer chalked up additional debts.
Born on July 11, 1956, the former Kenya Power boss hit the age of 60 last year. This is what prompted activist Okiya Omtatah to move to court saying Dr Chumo had attained the mandatory retirement age and hence should leave office. Judge Nelson Abuodha in November last year issued temporary orders stopping the renewal of his tenure at Kenya Power.
He has since made up his mind to retire into lecturing at university. “Teaching is my passion. I already have three offers as we speak,” said Dr Chumo without divulging finer details.
He received his doctorate degree in human resource management from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in 2013. Prior to retirement, he supervised postgraduate students taking HR, perhaps a rehearsal for his forage into teaching.
Dr Chumo joined Kenya Power in 1986 as a human resource officer, rising to chief manager in charge of HR in 2003 before taking over the corner office a decade later.
He was in July 2013 appointed acting CEO following the promotion of Joseph Njoroge to serve as Energy PS.
Dr Chumo’s tenure at Kenya Power has seen electricity connections double to 4.87 million households and industries as at June 2016, from 2.3 million customers in June 2013 when he took office.
“This is what I’m very proud about: enhancing connectivity,” he said at the briefing. He added: “Universal access has been my big dream. We started at 25 per cent and we are now at 60 per cent.”
Dr Chumo said his dream was to have all children do their homework under electrify lighting and not harmful sources such as firewood and wick lamps.
He said he planned to ride on this success to further expand Internet access to the last mile in Kenya.
“A further dream was to follow that with Internet access. And as we know very well, access to Internet is equivalent to access to education. One cannot do without the other,” said the man who loved spending time out in the field assessing projects.
Kenya Power’s net profit stood at Sh7.5 billion for the full year to June 2016 from Sh3.4 billion in June 2013, an annual compounded growth rate of 30.2 per cent.
On revamping the electricity network, the utility added 15,761 kilometres of new high and medium voltage power lines across Kenya during Dr Chumo’s tenure to raise the total to 65,579 kilometres. Another 881 new substations were completed and commissioned during his reign, according to Kenya Power data.
His other passion was urban street lighting, implementing projects to light up 40 major towns out of the targeted 65 municipalities earmarked for the project.
He graduated in 1984 with a BA (Hon), Social Sciences, from the University of Nairobi and earned an MBA in 2006 from the same university.
Dr Chumo has known one employer all his life: He joined Kenya Power in 1986 as a human resource officer, rising to chief manager in charge of HR in 2003 before taking over the corner office a decade later.
But critics said his failings threaten to wipe out his success. They say Dr Chumo saddled the company with massive debt, accumulated defaulted bills, surging power losses, and illegal electricity connections which are denying the firm revenue.
Kenya Power’s borrowings more than doubled to stand at Sh105 billion as at June 2016 from Sh42.8 billion in June 2013. At the end of June 2015, Kenya Power was sitting on a cash pile of Sh28 billion, which has dwindled to a mere Sh5 billion at the end of last June 2016.
Mountain of unpaid bill
The utility’s mountain of unpaid bills hit Sh12.4 billion as at June 2016, forcing the firm to switch defaulting customers to pre-paid meters from post-paid metering as a strategy to arrest non-payment.
Kenya Power’s efficiency ratio deteriorated to 80.6 per cent last year from 82.7 per cent in June 2012.
This means that the company lost 19.4 per cent of the total 9,816 gigawatt hours (GWh) bought from KenGen and independent power producers (IPPs) in transmission losses through outages, theft and grid leakages.
Kenya Power is also grappling with a surge in illegal electricity connections to households undertaken by unscrupulous contractors exploiting the lengthy procedures involved in getting linked to the grid.
The corrupt technicians behind the dodgy scheme are stealing prepaid meters from the utility firm and siphoning wooden poles from treatment centres to connect households located near Kenya Power transformers, according to investigations by the Business Daily.
