Last Mile connections push up electricity bill defaults

Energy Cabinet Secretary Charles Keter launches the Last Mile Connectivity Project in Siaya County in May 2016. The initiative mainly targets poor rural households. [File, Standard]

The amount of money that Kenya Power loses owing to non-payment of electricity bills has been on the rise despite the installation of prepaid metres for a majority of its domestic customers.

The firm has attributed the rise in the unpaid bills to an increase in the number of customers under its Last Mile Connectivity Programme, with the recent additions largely drawn from low-income urban and rural households.

New users

The outstanding amount from domestic consumers grew 45 per cent in the year to June this year to Sh4.5 billion from Sh3.1 billion last year while the total amount of money due to the company from all customers rose to Sh12.6 billion.

The firm in its annual report said 65 per cent of its domestic customers are on prepaid metres. The metering system was expected to address customers defaulting on payment of bills as they can only consume what they have paid for.

The firm has been in a race to achieve universal electricity access among Kenyans by 2020 and has increased the number of its customers to 6.2 million by June this year, about 200 per cent growth when put in comparison to 2.3 million customers that the firm had in June 2013.

This has been through initiatives offering to connect new users at a reduced cost such as the Last Mile Connectivity Programme.

The firm brushed off the growing number of unpaid bills, saying they were not a threat to its revenues as most customers “end up paying”.

“During the year, we connected more than 1.5 million new customers, which is huge and so it is expected that the number of unpaid bills would grow. It is, however, a rolling amount because we sent out bills at the end of the month, which is captured in the annual report, but customers have two weeks to pay. It is not a concern. They cannot be looked at as unrecoverable,” said the firm in a response to The Standard.

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