The firm’s managing director Ken Tarus is now seeking Parliament’s intervention to enact laws imposing harsher penalties to deal with offenders.
Vandals normally eye the toxic oil that is drawn from transformers, allegedly used for cooking food in roadside stalls, while copper wires from the equipment are sold as scrap metal and to fix motors.
The World Bank says Kenyans stay without power for 25 days a year, on average, mainly due to blackouts.
Vandalism, meter tampering and power theft through illegal connections are costing Kenya Power Sh500 million in losses every year.
The firm’s managing director Ken Tarus is now seeking Parliament’s intervention to enact laws imposing harsher penalties to deal with offenders.
Vandals normally eye the toxic oil that is drawn from transformers, allegedly used for cooking food in roadside stalls, while copper wires from the equipment are sold as scrap metal and to fix motors.
“We are losing Sh500 million in revenue to vandalism and other related crimes annually. If this is not addressed, it could be quite destructive to our operations and health of business,” he said.
Speaking in Nanyuki last Friday when the company’s senior management team met with the parliamentary committee on energy, Mr Tarus said the vice has hampered the parastatal’s efforts to provide reliable power.
He said the loss has prompted the power firm to initiate sustained surveillance on the network through countrywide operations to crack down vandalism and illegal connections.
“Our efforts have borne fruits and we continue to see remarkable reduction in cases of vandalism and illegal connections, though the war is far from over,” he said.
The World Bank says Kenyans stay without power for 25 days a year, on average, mainly due to blackouts.
In an effort to cushion consumers from power interruptions, Kenya Power has started mounting transformers in more inaccessible places, such as inside homes and much higher up on poles.
Live wires
The utility firm has also been placing transformers above live wires to curb losses incurred in outages, replacement and maintenance.
The company is also in the process of replacing vandalism-prone transformers with dry ones in a project expected to save the firm more than Sh500 billion every year.
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