Tharaka Nithi County Governor Muthomi Njuki has accused Kenya Power (KPLC) of sabotaging President Ruto’s plan to launch Industrial projects.
Speaking during Tuesday's Jamhuri Day celebrations at the Chuka DC grounds, Njuki noted that Ruto’s agenda to partner with counties to set up industrial parks heavily depends on power, and should he relent on investigating the constant outages, his legacy would be at stake.
“How are we supposed to launch 47 industrial parks in Kenya with such power outages?” Njuki wondered.
Njuki, the Council of Governors’ (CoG) Health Committee chairperson further requested the President to crack the whip on officials at Kenya Power and stamp authority consequently.
“Citizens who have already paid to have power connected to their homes are still waiting 15 years and counting."
“We have become people who rob our own citizens. The President needs to whip the people managing power in Kenya in line so we can stop being a laughing stock,” Njuki stated.
Njuki further highlighted that the main problem was power distribution, as there was enough electricity production in the country.
“During Uhuru (former President Uhuru Kenyatta) and Ruto’s tenure (Ruto then acted as Uhuru's deputy), we pushed electricity production from 18000 megawatts to 2700 megawatts. So there is enough electricity!” He added.
Njuki criticised the power company, adding that it is unfathomable that a country like Kenya, which ranks highly amongst its peers in the region, can have frequent power outages affecting the country’s main airport, the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, yet no key action is taken.
“Kenya Power, which is a monopoly, is not living up to the expectations of Kenyans who are already paying high electricity bills.”
“How can we have electricity rationing, when our dams are overflowing?” he questioned, condemning Energy CS Davis Chirchir, who claimed that lack of water and an overload on the Kisumu- Muhoroni transmission line caused the Sunday, December 10 outage.
The governor also asked President Ruto to institute measures to cushion Kenyans from the effects of the high cost of living while asking Kenyans to be patient.
