Kenya power to shut down prepaid system for upgrade

Kenya Power token meter. [Image: Courtesy]

Kenya Power will shut down its prepaid system next week to enable the migration of data to new hardware.

The electricity distributor announced in a newspaper advert the shutdown will happen from Tuesday 9th April 11.00 pm to Wednesday 10th April 6.00 pm.

“During this period, our customers will not be able to purchase electricity tokens in our banking halls, prepaid paybill number and via all other prepaid vending channels,” it said.

Kenya Power said that the shutdown is meant to improve service delivery.

The firm processes up to 200,000 electronic top-up transactions per day, 85 per cent of it via the M-Pesa paybill number 888880.

The remaining transactions are handled by third-party vendors such as Dynamo and VendIT.

It’s the first time the public will not be able to buy tokens. At the start of the year, an unprecedented system collapse caused by a technical hitch prevented homes and businesses from purchasing electricity token for about two days.

The January shutdown was the longest with the public faulting the company for taking so long to address the issue.