High power bills dampen economic prospects

Kenya: It is hard to understand Kenya Power’s decision to increase the cost of electricity at a time it was expected to reduce it following KenGen’s addition of 140 megawatts to the national grid from the Olkaria geothermal project.

Few analysts buy the electricity distributor’s explanation that it increased the cost due to marginal but steady rise in the rate of inflation. It is not lost on economic savants that the cost of living went up on the back of a double digit increase in the cost of electricity which rose by 10.67 per cent pushing up the housing, water, gas and other fuels index by 0.57 per cent.