Kenya Power retiree’s painful 10-year wait for compensation after ruinous accident

Kenya: More than 10 years ago, Kenya Power—then called the Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) — pledged to compensate Apolo Ayuku Lisutsa, a former employee who suffered severe injuries in the line of duty.

The 64-year-old father of six from Shinyalu Constituency, Kakamega County, accidentally fell from an electricity post right into an eight-feet ditch in an incident that left him paralysed to date. His nervous system, back and spinal cord were also affected.

But a decade later, Lisutsa has not received a single cent from the electricity firm. Lisutsa’s efforts to follow up the matter at Kenya Power’s Kisumu regional offices and in its Nairobi headquarters have hit a brick wall.

“I got injured in January 2003 while on duty in Kakamega. It has been 10 years of chasing after compensation at Kenya Power offices in Kisumu and Nairobi,’’ Lisutsa said, his pain written all over his face.

Immediately after the accident, Lisusta says he reported the matter to his immediate supervisor. The details of the accident were recorded in his file. Then a Clerk 2 artisan of sound health, he can neither walk, sit nor take a bath as he used to. He requires assistance from his son Clinton to move from one place to another.

Retirement benefits

“I opted to resign on health grounds, a request my employer advised on and granted without any problem. They agreed to process my retirement benefits as I was due to retire in a year’s time,” he said.

Lisutsa showed The Standard on Sunday a letter from the Kenya Power Human Resource and Administration Manager, Wamiti Mbatia, indicating his retirement on medical grounds.

“We are pleased to inform you that your request to retire on medical grounds has been accepted with effect from May 31, 2003. You will be advised about your retirement benefits under a separate cover and for this purpose, forward your future contact address and a copy of your bank card to the employee benefits manager,’’ the letter reads.

“I take this opportunity to thank you for the dedicated service you have rendered to this company since January 1, 1989 and wish you a quick recovery and a rewarding retirement,’’ it adds.

Little did he know that this would be the beginning of his troubles. When he went to lodge a claim for his compensation at Kenya Power’s Kisumu offices, his documents had mysteriously disappeared.

Lisutsa says a senior officer at Kenya Power told him he was entitled to “a lot of money” in compensation but demanded an inducement before he could act on his file which he “had seen somewhere”.

“I believe the senior officer knows where my file is hidden to date. He is responsible for its disappearance.  My life has been rendered useless as if I never worked. That cash would have enabled me get proper medication,’’ he says.

Lisutsa says the officer has since been transferred to Nairobi. He has been taken in circles since then. Kenya Power’s explanation for their failure to release his compensation is that Lisutsa reported the matter late and failed to follow the correct procedure, something the former employee denies.

“It pains me to hear that my former employer is alleging that I reported the case late yet my supervisor at the time knew it as I had given them my report. They took my file to the Kisumu office in 2003. Since then, the file cannot be traced. At Kenya Power’s  headquarters in Nairobi, they say my file is still missing,’’ he told The Standard on Sunday.

An officer with Kenya Power told The Standard on Sunday that the human resource department admitted not to have reported Lisutsa’s matter to the relevant authorities at the right time to facilitate his compensation.

A letter from Kenya Power seen by The Standard on Sunday in Kakamega dated January 16, 2014 and signed by I. Bore, the Legal Services Manager, reads: “The alleged accident was not reported to the company by your client and our letter dated August 22, 2005 addressed to him requesting for details of the accident including the personal accident number has elicited no response to date. Our insurers are unable to process claims which were not reported within the stipulated time”.

When Lisutsa’s issue was raised during last year’s retirees Annual General Meeting at a  Nairobi hotel, Dr Ben Chumo, the Kenya Power CEO, directed his officers to look into the matter within two weeks. Lisutsa, however, says he has never received a word from the firm since then.

Missing documents

Lisutsa has tried to seek justice through many legal channels. At one time, he approached Transparency International (TI) Kenya in Kisumu. The organisation drafted a letter to KPLC but the response was the same - he reported the case late. TI referred him to the Commission on Administration of Justice, but this bore no fruits as well.

Reached for comment, Kenya Power Deputy Corporate Affairs Manager Pheuri Theuri insisted that Lisutsa did not report the matter as expected so an official record of the accident could be kept. Theuri said that according to the company’s records, Lisutsa was only involved in an accident in 1991 and 1992.

“This matter is unknown to us; he never reported it to Kenya Power. He requested to retire and the employer accepted. Our records show that he had an accident in 1991 and 1992 that he reported as per the procedures, he was treated and the issue closed at the time he was retiring,” Theuri claimed.

Lisutsa spends his days indoors as he takes painkillers. He survives on the Sh6,000 pension he gets every month.

“I cannot afford the expensive drugs or go to a good hospital that needs money which I do not have. I anticipated to have three graduates in this family but my wish to invest in their education has been affected. Most of them have dropped out of school due to lack of fees,’’ he says.