MPs criticise energy regulator for hiking prices of electricity

Energy Regulatory Commission Director-General Pavel Oimeke

NAIROBI, KENYA: Parliament has criticised the energy regulator for increasing electricity charges for domestic consumers.

The National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Energy also said reducing the number of subsidised units that low-end consumers can utilise in a month had locked out many Kenyans who might not meet the criteria of the middle-income segment that they have now been bundled into.

After last month’s review, power costs for ordinary domestic consumers went up by as much as 20 per cent and they are now have paying Sh22.19 for a kilowatt hour (KWh) of electricity. Users of between 11 and 100 units previously paid Sh18.40 per unit.

Overall, 2.8 million electricity consumers have seen their costs go up.

The committee’s chairman, Boniface Gikaria, yesterday asked whether the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) had considered the input of the consumers during the stakeholder participation phase conducted throughout July.

Too steep

Mr Gikaria, who is also the MP for Nakuru East, said the increase in tariffs was too steep for the median category and came after repeated promises that the cost of power would go down.

He said ERC should have left the upper limit for the lifeline tariff at 50 units. The ERC reduced the number of units that low-end consumers can use in a month at a subsidised rate to 10 from the previous 50.

“It is shocking how the cost of electricity has increased for the 2.8 million domestic customers... you are denying Kenyans the opportunity to use electricity because of the cost,” said the MP during a hearing by the committee yesterday.

“You (ERC) should have also left the upper limit for the lifeline tariff at 50 kilowatts per hour. It is one of the issues that has resulted in too many complaints from Kenyans.”

In the review that took effect on August 1 for prepaid consumers and July 1 for post-paid customers, ERC scrapped the monthly fixed fee and reduced substantially the variables such as the fuel cost charge and foreign exchange adjustment. ERC Director-General Pavel Oimeke told the committee that there was an overall 14 per cent decline in the cost of power.

Among those that have seen a reduction in their power bills include low-end consumers, some of whom, according to him, will see power costs go down by 90 per cent.

The number of customers using under 10 units a month, according to ERC, is 3.5 million, more than 50 per cent of Kenya Power’s 6.5 million customers.

Mr Oimeke said the commission had consulted different players in the power sector before making the decision to increase and reduce costs for different consumer categories.

“We consulted the different stakeholders that make up the power sector, including the domestic consumers. There were those that wanted an increase in the tariff while there are those that pushed for reductions,” he said.