A Nanyuki law court has ordered a Kenyan caught vandalising a customer's electricity metre board at Riverside estate in Timau town, Meru County to pay a fine of Ksh5 million or serve a 10-year prison sentence.
In a statement released on Tuesday, July 25, Kenya Power indicated that the incident had been reported at the Timau police station and the suspect charged with stealing energy equipment contrary to section 169 of the Energy Act 2019.
At the time of his arrest, the suspect was found in possession of two cut-outs, a miniature circuit board switch and a meter board.
During his arraignment at the Nanyuki Law Courts, the suspect pleaded guilty of the charges levelled against him. Consequently, the Nanyuki law court resident, Lisper Gakii, handed him the sentence on Tuesday, July 25.
"This sentence will go a long way to deter vandalism and other illegal activities on the network. We are relentless in the fight against these crimes as they pose the danger of loss of life through electrocution and undermine the quality of power supply, beyond financial losses to the Company," Acting Kenya Power Security Services Manager Maj. Paul Nyaga Gichovi said while responding to the court ruling.
Gichovi stated that Kenya Power is employing a multi-agency approach to stem theft and vandalism of property.
“I urge members of the public to support this fight by way of reporting any suspicious activities on the network to the nearest police station or Kenya Power office." the official concluded.
Worrying Trend
Electric equipment vandalism, illegal electricity connections, and transformer oil syphoning have become recurrent issues across the country.
On February 8, two suspects in Nyandarua arrested after being caught vandalising a transformer and siphoning its oil. An assortment of spanners and copper coils were recovered from their house.
The Nyandarua court ordered a man to pay a fine of Ksh.200,000 or face two years in prison or for selling potato chips cooked using transformer oil.
The accused was arrested in December 2021 while in possession of 11 litres of transformer oil.
