Hustlers will pay more in electricity bills from April 1 after the energy regulatory agency approved new tariffs.
The rise in electricity costs come at a time when President William Ruto had vowed to ensure the cost of power does not go up.
The Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority said that Kenyans consuming below 30 kilowatts(kWh)) per month will have their electricity bills go up by 22.2 percent.
The agency approved changes in the electricity costs for this category of consumers known as Domestic Lifeline- estimated to be 6.3 million- from the current Sh10 per a unit to Sh12.22 per unit.
Another category called as Domestic Ordinary 1, which consumes between 31-100 KWh of electricity per month, will have the costs go up by 63 per cent from Sh10 per unit to Sh16.3 per unit.
In a statement, the agency said the Kenya Power will be able to raise revenue of Sh479 million monthly from customers consuming less than 30 units a month alone.
EPRA, in its review of the tarrifs, also grouped another category called as Domestic Ordinary 2 whose consumers spend over 100 units a month.
This group will have the cost of their electricity go up from Sh15.8 per a unit to Sh20.97 per unit, representing an increase of 51.7 per cent.
Both the Domestic 1 and 2 category are projected to bring in Sh4.7 billion monthly for the Kenya Power, representing a 35 percent increase.
Husters running small businesses consuming less than 30 units a month will be known as Small Commercial 1 and will pay Sh12.22 up from Sh10 per unit.
This will be the same as domestic consumers under the Lifeline Category.
However, those consuming more than 30 units but less than 100 units per month-Small Commercial 2- will have their costs increased from Sh10 to Sh16.4 per.
The other category of Small Commercial 3 which consumer more than 100 units per a month will pay Sh20.18 up from Sh15.6.
The tariffs, which will apply from April 1 after Epra’s approval, will hurt household budgets and raise the already high cost of doing business in Kenya.
Kenya Power holds that the higher tariffs are justified because the present electricity prices lapsed in 2019.
In 2018, Epra reduced the retail prices of electricity following former President Uhuru Kenyatta's order.
There are concerns that the proposed increase will hurt businesses given that electricity is a key determinant for new investments.
