- They face another charge of neglecting their duty being the employees of Kenya Power.
- They denied the charges before Kahawa law court chief magistrate Diana Mochache and pleaded for lenient bond terms.
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Three Kenya Power officials accused of sabotaging electricity supply that affected most parts of the country were on Wednesday charged.
Acting general manager network management Raphael Ndolo Kimeu, chief engineer transmission and distribution David Kamau and assistant engineer Julius Karani were accused that wilfully with intent to sabotage, they failed to maintain and reinforce the Dandora-Embakasi high voltage lines of Kenya Power.
The prosecution said they failed to maintain the high voltage lines that are used for the supply of electricity to the Kenyan citizens thus leading to the collapse of towers at Imara Daima in Embakasi South within Nairobi.
The three allegedly committed the offence on dates between November 29, 2021 and January 11, 2022 within the country.
They face another charge of neglecting their duty being the employees of Kenya Power.
The prosecution alleges that they wilfully neglected to attend to Dandora –Embakasi high voltage transmission towers which had been vandalised, a duty they were dutifully bound to perform as per their job description.
They denied the charges before Kahawa law court chief magistrate Diana Mochache and pleaded for lenient bond terms.
The prosecution however stated that the offence committed was serious and the court should consider while granting bail.
The court released them on a cash bail of Sh1 million.
The case will be mentioned after two weeks.
Last week, the accused were detained with six other suspects who were acquitted for lack of evidence.
Police said they did not have enough evidence to charge them.
The six acquitted officers include, Chief engineer transmission network George Korir, manager security Geoffrey Kigen, technician Antony Gathii, senior security officer Nairobi region Martin Musyoki, driver Joshua Wasakha, and chief security officer Peter Musyoki.
Before their arrest, DCI George Kinoti had directed detectives from the Serious Crime Unit to grill the senior officials charged with the responsibility of securing high voltage lines and transmission from the national grid.
Police said six towers along the Olkaria-Kisumu power line were also vandalised in Naivasha.
Preliminary investigation also points to sabotage. The Naivasha incident came barely a week after a similar one at the Kiambere-Embakasi line at Imara Daima.
Investigations revealed that a joint task force by Kenya Power and the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company had on December 8 furnished the board with a report that, among other things, recommended that the basement of angle towers of Kenya Power’s high voltage power lines in Embakasi had been vandalised and the cross beams unbolted.
The probe established that a few days after Eng Rosemary Oduor was appointed the managing director, she wrote to the board on August 10, 2021, indicating that some materials had to be bought for the maintenance of the power lines.
But the information was ignored, leading to the collapse that caused a major outage.
-Edited by SKanyara
Image: HANDOUT