Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) is the only electricity supplier in the country. Being the only player, with no competitor, apart from a few solar panels, Kenya Power seems to be taking advantage of its customers with higher charges.
Imagine giving someone your money to buy a product or service, then they deduct 61 percent of your money before selling you the product on the remaining amount. If this is not daylight robbery, what else can it be called or referred to?
Here is the breakdown: If you pay 500 shillings to Kenya Power now for tokens, you will not get tokens worth 500 shillings. First, 59.94 shillings will be deducted as Value Added Tax (VAT), 179.61 shillings as Fuel Energy Charge, and 37.56 shillings as Forex Charge.
0.76 shillings will be deducted as EPRA charge, 0.30 shillings as WRA charge, 9.75 shillings will go to REP charge while 16.97 shillings will be deducted as Inflation Adjustment. In the end, you will be left with 195.11 shillings to purchase your tokens.
When the current government, through William Ruto was seeking to capture power, they used the narrative that KPLC had been taken over by cartels. They vowed to demolish the cartels at KPLC and give Kenyans cheap electricity. They said freedom was coming.
They got power. And instead of deductions dropping, they have grown now past 60 percent and one wonders whether Uhuru Kenyatta had any problem at all. The current regime seems hellbent on skinning and squeezing every coin out of our tattered pockets.
What is more terrifying is that the deductions on the Kenya Power tokens have been increasing overnight with no prior communications. They know that Kenyans will purchase electricity, no matter what, hence the impunity in raising the costs.
The freedom that was promised is now dawning on the millions of hustlers; dying of hunger, high cost of living, and high electricity among other things.
