Kenya Power officials and police in Homa Bay are conducting a crackdown to stop vandalism of the company’s property in the county.
KPLC also wants to eradicate cases of illegal electric connections in the county.
This comes after they realised there are increased cases of power outages in major towns in the county.
KPLC said the frequent power outages are attributed to unlawful power supply and destruction of electrical hardware.
According to Kenya Power officials, the illegal connections and vandalism are rampant in Kendu Bay, Mbita, Oyugis, Asumbi and Ndhiwa towns.
KPLC officer in charge of Homa Bay George Omwaro said the towns have been affected by persistent cases of disconnections caused by fraudsters.
“Some fraudsters masquerade as KPLC technicians and do to illegal connections. The ongoing crackdown will ensure we eradicated such connections and arrest people behind the vandalism,” Omwaro said.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, Omwaro said illegal connections predispose residents to danger and urged them to work closely with them to expose uncertified individuals dealing in power supply.
“The fraudsters do extensions of power to areas that our lines haven’t reached. KPLC is cutting off the unlawful lines to avoid exposing the lives of people to risk,” he added.
The officer said the fraudsters also use cables which cause power surges and destroy transformers.
“The steel cables they use have a lot of resistance to the electric supply. This causes a lot of heat due to the conductor and eventually causes blasts to transformers,” the official said.
The KPLC officials have also noted a rampant in syphoning of oil from transformers in Kendu Bay, Mbita and Ndhiwa towns.
The oil is meant to cool electricity transformers during operations.
When drained, the electrical equipment can blow up from overheating and cause harm to residents.
Frequent power outages in the areas are caused by draining of the oil from transformers, Omwaro said.
“Procurement of transformers especially when they are blown up unnecessarily is hectic. That’s why several towns like Kendu, Ndhiwa and Mbita do experience shortage of power,” he said.
The county has 40 per cent of electricity connection.
Omwaro attributed slow supply to illegal connection and vandalism of electrical equipment from Kenya Power.
“We’re not stopping the crackdown any soon until we bring sanity in the sub-sector,” the officer added.
Edited by R.Wamochie
