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Why Kenya Power must make its deals public
What you need to know:
- Being a public concern, Kenya Power must be ready at all times to explain what it is doing and how it is doing it.
- Electricity is an essential service and, therefore, consumers will pay whatever it takes to avoid being disconnected.
The Kenya Power Company is behaving badly. As a public entity funded by taxpayers, it has an obligation and a duty to distribute electricity to homeowners and industries cost-effectively while operating above board. One way it can do this is to ensure that it gets into transparent deals with power suppliers and contractors.
Being a public concern, Kenya Power must be ready at all times to explain what it is doing and how it is doing it for the taxpayers to judge whether their funds are being prudently used for their benefit. It is on the spot for its refusal to furnish the Public Investment Committee (PIC) of the National Assembly with copies of its contracts with 17 independent power producers (IPPs) worth Sh50 billion. Parliament wants to know the ownership of the firms and how they won tenders.
The power utility insists that it cannot do so without a court order but has submitted the contracts (with the confidentiality clause) to the Auditor-General. This still does not make sense since it is a public watchdog committee of Parliament that is seeking the information. The deals with the IPPs have not always been clean. As the people’s representatives, the lawmakers are justified in their demand for information.
Essential service
This standoff with the PIC smacks of unbelievable impunity on the part of Kenya Power. Electricity is an essential service and, therefore, consumers will pay whatever it takes to avoid being disconnected. They are the real captives in the web of impunity and extortionist billing.
National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi is not taking this insult lying down. He has directed the National Assembly’s Energy Committee to summon the directors of the concerned firms and the Energy Cabinet secretary to provide more information about them to the House.
Parliament should not be intimidated. It should soldier on and get to the bottom of the matter. The profiteering at the public expense must be stopped.
