Part of standard gauge railway on Nairobi-Mombasa route that was vandalised in May. PHOTO| WACHIRA MWANGI
In Kenya, where 60 per cent of the population are connected to power, electricity can easily be taken for granted.
One may particularly attribute this to a fast access rate that has, for instance, seen four million households get connected to the national grid in the last four years alone.
To us in the industry, however, we appreciate an information gap that exists between the consumer and amount of electricity that the country generates, transmits and distributes for use.
It is due to that information gap that vices such as illegal connections, meter tampering, bypassing and vandalism have thrived.
And unknown to most Kenyans, these vices lead to electricity losses running into billions of shillings that consumers are eventually asked to pay for every year via power tariffs.
Let’s pick vandalism as our elephant in the room. This is a vice that has the potential to curtail the country’s development cycle. It is not restricted to power transmission lines.
Most infrastructure projects, including transformers and the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), have in the recent past suffered from vandalism.
One only needs to recall a recent event when the Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet complained publicly that the SGR infrastructure was being vandalised before its maiden voyage.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has in the past stated that key elements required to propel economic growth in Kenya include telecommunications and manufacturing, the two variables overly dependent on uninterrupted power supply.
Yet with the increasing vandalism among other economic crimes, the possibilities are vaguely remote. Vandalism of power infrastructure is co-ordinated theft by crime syndicates and individuals.
Some blame its escalation on abject poverty and high rate of unemployment, which may push desperate individuals into stripping steel cables for sale to scrap metal dealers for quick cash.
Pull and push factors aside, the effects and implications of vandalism are diverse but they collectively lead to losses that cost the local economy billions of shillings.
Recently, Ketraco’s underground cables linking Nairobi to the Coast region were vandalised more than once and the replacement cost has now reached over Sh810 million taking into account material purchase, shipping and civil work expenses but excluding the time factor.
Other infrastructure firms like railways operators, power distributors, telcos and pipeline managers have reported countless malicious theft and vandalism. The nationwide impact of this vice is unfathomable.
Socially, the effects have been drastic as many lives are lost due to electrocution. What’s more, most of the people who survive electrocution end up maimed.
The number of vandalism-related cases has shot up lately. For instance, audacious vandals recently went to the degree of damaging a section of the SGR a few days before its presidential launch on June 1.
The President responded with a declaration that such acts amounted to economic sabotage, a capital offence punishable by hanging.
We all have to do something in the wake of this severe scenario that risks upsetting our positive growth trajectory.
Perhaps borrowing a leaf from other sectors, increased policing by security agencies and communities as well as applying stiffer penalties could offer the remedy.
Further, if we tighten the noose on the merchants of illegal scrap metal, then ultimately, nobody will engage in the trade for obvious reasons.
Fernandes Barasa is managing director, Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco).
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