Editorials

Make cheaper electricity promise a top policy issue

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Kenya Power technicians replace the wooden posts with the concrete ones along Nyerere Avenue in Mombasa. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NMG

It was a heart-breaking end to 2021 for power consumers. Instead of the much-awaited 15 percent electricity bills cut ‘Christmas gift’ promised by President Uhuru Kenyatta, consumers continued to pay through their noses to light up their homes and keep businesses running.

Kenyans deserve better than to have the promise of a cost relief dangled only to be withheld.

That the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) could not deliver the first of two planned cost reductions in electricity bills is a big concern.

It casts doubts on the wholesale recommendations of the task force formed by Mr Kenyatta last year to look into ways of easing the burden on Kenyans and leaves the President with an egg on his face.

Why couldn’t the regulator deliver the promise? Could it be that the recommendations are impractical or some interested parties are frustrating its efforts to implement the cost reduction?

The authority needs to come clean on the hold-up. Whenever the situation calls for an increase in charges, the authority has in the past been promptly effecting the changes. Why, then, was it difficult to effect a reduction this time round? By keeping mum, it is giving credence to the belief that it has been held captive by cartels.

Kenyans expect the President and the energy regulator to keep the promise of easing this electricity burden that is giving homes and businesses sleepless nights.

The cost of electricity in Kenya is prohibitively high. Effecting a meaningful cost cut is crucial to ensuring that Kenya regains its competitive edge in the regional market.

Neighbouring countries have taken advantage of Kenya’s high electricity costs to woo investors. Businesses that find the power bills too expensive have either been shutting down and moving to neighbouring countries or staying off the national grid by investing in alternative sources.

And it is not just businesses that have been thinking outside the box. Households slapped with inexplicable exorbitant bills have also been going big on solar power products.

The President and the regulator have a chance to stem the mass exodus from the national grid by keeping their word on cost reduction.