Monkey Costs Kenyans Billions

Power generating company KenGen has disclosed the cause of the countrywide power outage experienced for the better part of Tuesday.

According to a statement by KenGen, a monkey tampered with machinery at Gitaru Power Station after it dropped onto a transformer.

"At 1129 hours this morning, a monkey climbed on the roof of Gitaru Power Station and dropped onto a transformer tripping it,” read the statement.

Normal operations were, nonetheless, restored after four hours though it remained unclear how the monkey managed to get past the electric fence and survived.

The Gitaru Power Station is the biggest in terms of installed capacity and satisfies a fifth of the country's power needs with its 225 MW peak power generation.

The outage reportedly led to loss of billions of shillings among the business community across the country with the service industry being the most affected.

Currently, a bill is before parliament that seeks to compel Kenya Power to pay consumers in case a blackout occurs for  over three hours in a day.

The blackout caught the attention of international media outlets after it affected major parts of the country.

Here is how the blackout was covered:

Mirror(UK)- Monkey Knocks out Kenya's entire power grid after falling onto transformer at electricity plant.

CNN (US) -Monkey causes nationwide blackout in Kenya

Washington Post (US)- Kenya power company say monkey caused nationwide blackout

REUTERS (US)-Kenya nationwide blackout caused by monkey tripping

Eyewitness (South Africa)-Rogue monkey causes nationwide blackout in Kenya