In my prime Kenya Power & Lighting Company may have been voted the most efficient public institution. Maybe it even was. I just cannot remember. This efficiency has however disappeared in the folds of reckless public policy, grand corruption from both ends of the personnel, tribal staffing and promotions and generally, an attitude from the staff that says ‘we are doing you a favour’.
How a johnny-come-lately like Safaricom Plc could post impressive profits against Kenya Power and Lighting may make an interesting reading for students of business and commerce and the public at large.
Kenya Power and Lighting company or KPLC as it is infamously known has year after year not only been sinking in the red but also in disrepute.
Stories abound of how KPLC has robbed Innocent Kenyans of a service it should be bending backwards to give.
I remember, during my working days visiting a farm in Narok on official duties. This farm was run by a mzungu and employed about 100 workers on permanent basis and maybe 150 contractually. The farm sat on about 200 acres and grew wheat and ran a Bakery amongst other add on businesses. Amazingly, this farm was not connected to the National power grid.
On asking the mzungu owner about this, he said that the KPLC employees gave him the run around when he applied for power and demanded unimaginable amounts of bribe, that he opted to generate his own power.
How a company can miss such a great opportunity for making money and in the process making sure that hundreds of Kenyans are meaningfully employed beats me. I am not sure but it is possible that the mzungu owner of the wheat farm in Narok has already relocated or is contemplating relocation to a more business-friendly country.
My own experience at the hands of KPLC is as well just amazing. I applied to be connected to the power grid in Kakamega and was slapped with what they call an estimate of approximately Sh800,000. I went to complain to the local KPLC office and they stuck to the estimate even after I told them that my neighbours are connected to power and after paying only Sh34,000.
I immediately made another application for the same premises but in the name of my wife and; wonder of wonders, an estimate came for Sh34,000.
The KPLC local staffers must have been very angry that they ‘made the connection’ but to a posho mill and started billing me for the ‘connection’
It is only after I went to see the then KPLC MD Dr Chumo that my issue was finally resolved.
We all remember how the dead Kenya Posts & Telecommunications ran roughshod on us. Our telephone bills were inflated by staffers who billed us for calls made by their friends overseas. Connecting one to a land line took ‘knowing people’ or paying someone a bribe. Complaints were sneered at and the staff were very rude when answering to complaints. Little did they know that they were digging their own graves of joblessness.
The KPLC staff, instead of learning from such cases of public companies that went under, are busy living for the moment and at the expense of the same people they are expected to serve.
We are all reading about the financial problems that threaten to kill the giant that is KPLC. These stories dwell so much on the murk at the top but down the rungs there is a rot that will make even the people at the top wrinkle their noses.
Right now I am engaged in an issue that affects my connection. I visited the local KPLC offices about my meter that had become faulty as it was visibly running too fast. Where I was being billed for an average of 92 Kwh per my meter was showing approximately 12000 Kwh. I was promised that someone would come over to sort out the problem but nobody did even after visiting the office about five times.
I resorted to writing to their customer care address and was asked for my contact numbers but nobody called and nobody came. By then my meter was reading 55551 Kwh in about a six weeks.
I made a reminder to customer care and was asked to submit a screenshot of the meter. I wondered why nobody thought it prudent to make this request of me when they were asking for my contact numbers. I however responded by pointing out that my problem is a faulty meter but was rudely asked to ‘do as you are told’
I submitted the screenshot by which time the meter was reading approximately 62000 Kwh. Mind you, even by this time nobody had called me and nobody had visited my premises. In response, KPLC slapped me with a bill of Sh59,000 after eating into my credit of Sh11,000.
Of course I complained yet again to customer care telling them that it was as if they were itching to disconnect my power even as they are going through financial woes. They responded by telling me that my reading had been adjusted following my request. Interestingly, I had NEVER made such a request to them. I told them as much and they went quiet.
When you have a customer care department that does not understand a complaint, you definitely will not get assistance from the other departments of the company.
As we await the National Youth Service to perform the duties that we, the Kenyan taxpayers, are paying another lot for, I think it is time a complete shakeup was done at KPLC.
As for me, I am now looking at alternative sources of power as I await the impending disconnection. I am well aware that having electricity is a convenience we all should have but it should not be at the peace of my mind. A good number of people live without electricity and they still do that—live.
My account number is 43344944 in the name of Margaret just in case there is someone at the company interested in keeping a customer.
