Though the 200-page report of the Presidential Task Force on Power Purchase Agreements (the PPA Task Force) is a bit of a wandering read, it contains a few thoughts for Kenyans. That a Presidential Task Force struggled for information on PPAs and other data on Independent Power Producers (IPPs) from Kenya Power (KPLC) management and required intervention by the KPLC Board, beggars belief.
As the report notes, two alternative conclusions can be drawn from this inability or refusal to provide information. The first is that KPLC does not have the information. As the Task Force noted using 2019/20 financial year data; power costs accounted for 66 per cent of total KPLC sales, and IPPs accounted for 47 per cent of these power costs (Kengen accounted for 48 per cent). How basic cost of sales data is not available is, as the report puts it, “inconceivable”.
