Tassia flats to stay with no electricity over illegal connections

Kenya Power personnel work on a power line. Yesterday, the firm disconnected at least 20 flats in Tassia, Nairobi. [File, Standard]

At least 20 flats in Nairobi’s Tassia Estate that had illegally connected power have been disconnected.

Kenya Power said it disconnected power from the flats in an operation to stamp out illegal electricity connections. 

The crackdown was carried out by a team comprising the company’s security personnel, revenue protection unit staff, and the police.

It is one of the many security operations going on across the country to curb vandalism, illegal connections, and theft of electricity distribution equipment.

The beneficiaries

“Illegal power connections pose danger not only to the culprits but also to the beneficiaries. In collaboration with the police, the company is carrying out operations to ensure that we eliminate illegal connections, by-passing of meters, and theft of our equipment,” Aggrey Machasio, Kenya Power’s regional manager of Nairobi South, said in a statement.

Illegal power connections have been pervasive in informal settlements, but the latest crackdown now suggests that even the middle-income residential neighbourhoods are also culprits. 

The firm said those who are found culpable would be arrested and charged in court.

Illegal connections are a risk to the company’s revenue as they provide an avenue for beneficiaries to enjoy unmetered electricity from which the company cannot collect revenue.

In addition, they overload the network, thus causing outages and undermining the quality of power supply.

Machasio urged the public to ensure that all applications for electricity connection and payments were only made at Kenya Power offices across the country.

Because of sustained surveillance on the network through countrywide operations, Kenya Power has been able to significantly reduce the number of vandalised transformers and other materials. In the last financial year, 133 transformers were vandalised compared to 222 the previous year.

Vandalised equipment

The reduction in the number of vandalised equipment and illegal connections translates into a saving on capital expenditure and an increase in revenue from sale of electricity.

In the last financial year, the company earned Sh91 billion from sale of electricity, up from Sh87 billion the previous year, due to growth of customer base and deployment of various measures to protect revenue.