Kenya Power Acting Managing Director Geoffrey Muli on Tuesday, March 28, opposed new county government charges that could see electricity costs shoot days after a 63 per cent increase.
While appearing before the National Assembly Committee on Energy, Muli revealed that there were plans by the counties to charge for every electricity pole erected in the devolved units.
He noted that the charges were retrogressive in their plans to lower the costs of electricity.
Muli explained that the new charges- if they sail through - would have to be factored in on their costs and passed to consumers.
The Kenya Power boss added that some of the county administrations had already written letters to them notifying them of the move.
Some of the counties revealed to be planning on undertaking the new charges are Nairobi, Mombasa, Laikipia and Machakos.
"It will affect the cost of electricity for the citizen at the end of the day because power will go up and we will be knocking at the door of the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) to put it on the tariff. This is not sustainable," he explained.
Kenya Power's position was also supported by the lawmakers who resolved to oppose the plans by the county governments.
"You cannot tap into an area which is going to pain Kenyans because of electricity bills," Mwala MP Vincent Masau stated.
On the other hand, the power utility firm detailed plans that they were enforcing to see that the cost of power reduced significantly in the long run.
One of the measures Muli intimated at the Tuesday meeting was the renegotiation of the existing Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs)
According to KPLC, 60 per cent of the 100 billion collected in electricity bills was used to pay for the PPAs.
To this effect, MPs called for new PPA deals to be based on Kenyan shillings and not dollars owing to the dominance of the latter.
"The PPI renegotiations that we are doing are covering everything. The new PPI we are doing will be alive to the fact that the cost of electricity must go down," Muli stated.
