Jan. 11 outage: Three top Kenya Power managers face sabotage charges

Kenya Power engineers at a site. [File, Standard]

The Kahawa Law Courts has freed six out of nine Kenya Power managers, who had been arraigned over their alleged involvement in the January 11 countrywide outage.

The court ruled that the prosecution had failed to provide evidence against George Kipkoech, Geoffrey Kipkirui, Anthony Gathii, Martin Musyoki, Joshua Wasakha and Peter Musyoki.

On January 19, the six alongside three other senior managers were arraigned before the Kahawa Law Courts Senior Principal Magistrate Boaz Ombewa.

At the time, the court directed that the nine be held in custody for eight days as investigations continued.

On Wednesday, January 26, Kahawa Law Courts Chief Magistrate Diana Mochache found Raphael Ndolo (network manager), David Kamau (transmission manager) and Julius Karani (transmission engineer) had questions to answer in the January 11 blackout.

The three were, consequently, released on Sh1 million cash bail or Sh2 million bond each.

The three are accused of “willfully and unlawfully, with intent to sabotage, failed to maintain and reinforce the Dandora-Embakasi high voltage power lines, leading to the collapse of Towers Numbers 11, 12, 13 and 14 at Imara Daima in Embakasi South Sub-County, Nairobi County”.

The said-negligence took place between November 29, 2021 and January 11, 2022, culminating in a power crisis that saw many parts of the country including Nairobi, Central Kenya, Nyanza, Western Kenya, sections of Rift Valley and Coast plunged into daytime outage.