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Former MP seeks Sh527m payout from Kenya Power

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Former Kisumu Town West MP Ken Nyagudi. PHOTO | FILE

Former Kisumu Town West legislator Ken Nyagudi has sued Kenya Power seeking Sh527 million compensation for damages he claims to have suffered after the electricity distributor allegedly failed to reconnect his 50-acre firm for over a year.

Mr Nyagudi holds that his 50-acre Macedonia Farms has since October 2015 been without electricity after the transformer serving the area exploded. He claims that the replacement transformer that was installed also failed to operate, and that Kenya Power was forced to install a third one.

The former Kisumu Town West MP claims that he has incurred losses on his greenhouses, fish farm, livestock and groundnuts farms that would have earned him Sh527 million.

“Without the supply of electrical energy from Kenya Power Mr Nyagudi cannot operate his farm in which he has invested substantially in electricity-dependent areas like large scale sprinkler irrigation farming, greenhouse farming, fish farming and chicken egg incubation. Kenya Power failed to clarify who or what was responsible for the loss at Mr Nyagudi’s farm,” the former legislator holds.

But Kenya Power has filed in court a report compiled by an Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) engineer indicating that there is normal electricity supply to the farm, and that the measured voltages are within the acceptable limits.

Justice Joseph Sergon had in December ordered Kenya Power and Mr Nyagudi to share the costs of having an independent electrical engineer from either the ERC or the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) to ascertain whether the farm is being supplied with electricity.

The judge issued the order following a standoff between Kenya Power and Mr Nyagudi over whether the farm had been connected to the required 415 volts. Mr Nyagudi claimed that the power reconnected only measured 242 volts.

Kenya Power accused Mr Nyagudi of shifting goalposts, arguing that he had moved from demanding reconnection to dictating the voltage of electricity to be supplied.

“Based on our inspection and test findings, our professional opinion is that the electricity has been connected by Kenya power at the customer’s point of supply... the measured voltages are within the acceptable,” the report compiled by ERC engineers Jonathan Ronoh and Michael Sigei reads.