Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i led a high-level meeting for two consecutive days to unravel the details over the recent nationwide power blackout that has become a major concern for Kenyans.
Matiang'i, flanked by his Energy counterpart, Monica Juma, put to task Kenya Power board officials over the matter.
The meeting was also attended by Kenya Power board chair Vivienne Yeda, National Intelligence Service Deputy General Philip Kameru, and Deputy Inspector General Noor Gabow.
The team called for investigations into the matter as some areas went without power for prolonged hours. Further, power lines at various parts of the country appear to have been vandalised.
In less than one month, the country has experienced three major power outages caused by collapsed power transmission lines.
In mid December 2021, the Loyangalani-Suswa power line went down. The tower, which has a voltage of 220 Kilovolts and supplies 17 percent of the power in the country, affected some parts of the country. This caused Kenya Power to ration power during evening peak hours.
On January 11, 2022, the Kiambere- Embakasi line also collapsed. The tower, which has a voltage of 220 kilovolts, caused power outages in major parts of the country as well.
The same day, the Suswa- Embakasi line also experienced technical faults and affected major areas of the country including Nairobi Central Business District (CBD), Westlands, Embakasi, Kilimani, Hurlingham. Industrial area, Syokimau, Athi River, Kitengela, Mlolongo were also affected.
Kenya Power issued a statement noting that their engineers were on site repairing the power lines.
The entity's officials stated that it could take up to two weeks for the towers to be brought back up. They, however, assured Kenyans they are looking for alternatives to supply power at the moment.
Kenya Power has been on the spot over the power outage experienced in the past week.
They explained that technical faults and a collapsed power line transmission were the major causes of the power blackout.
"We have lost power supply due to collapsed towers at the Kiambere - Embakasi high voltage transmission power line at 10:45am this morning," read the Kenya Power statement in part.
"Our engineers are working to restore electricity supply as repairs are being undertaken."
The outage comes days after the Ministry of Energy confirmed a 15 per cent reduction in electricity cost in order to cushion Kenyans from the high cost of living.
Meanwhile business owners who depend on Kenya Power are counting losses running into millions of shillings, as the State Corporation enjoying super monopoly struggles to fix the blackout.
