Monday, August 23, 2010

52nd, 53rd & 54th outages

While we've been having outages every single day since the last time I wrote which last from a few seconds to a few minutes, the last 3 days starting Saturday, things have been far worse......, if that is at all possible in the current trend that KPLC has started on.

To say that we are really and truly FED UP of this so-called power company is an understatement! And when we ring their emergency their overused mantra of telling us to have patience is adding insult to a very festering wound. They are pushing us against a wall and whatever that will lead to is not going to be at all nice for KPLC. They are taking their consumers on the North Coast for granted and since nobody has yet taken them to task legally for all the damage they continue doing to us does not mean that the thought has not occurred to us. They just might be pushing us in that direction.....

The following are the latest breakdown of the outages since Saturday night -

At about 8.15 pm on Saturday night the lights suddenly went off and I could get NOBODY on the phone, including emergency, to explain what was going on and when we would get our power back. I managed to finally get somebody and was told that there was a problem at Kipevu and it was affecting everybody in the Nyali area. So, they were now switching us to another source...?! Whatever that meant. Eventually, it did come back at around 10.00 pm, I think.

But, again on Sunday afternoon it went off at 12.30 pm not to come back for quite a few hours. This time while I tried calling all the engineers starting with Mr. Mbaluka, etc., and ending with Ms. Faith Njuguna, she was the only one who answered despite not feeling well. She too, it seems could not get hold of Mr. Mbaluka and therefore we couldn't know what was going on, why and when the power would be back.

Then, this morning on the dot of 8.00 am it went off yet again. Again, I could not get hold of Mr. Mbaluka and so reverted to Ms. Faith Njuguna who answered. She promised that she would call me back and I'm still waiting for her feedback. Maybe, she still has not been given an answer, either. But, I continued calling emergency and somebody answered who had the temerity to tell me in Kiswahili that I should have patience, yet again! No explanation was forthcoming and he told me that I should call Mr. Mbaluka if I wanted to know more.

This was a highly frustrating answer since Mr. Mbaluka is highly illusive and seems not to be able to answer difficult questions hence him not answering my calls. What exactly is going on? Doesn't it arouse suspicions? It also, probably does not augur well for us, the long suffering residents of the North Coast.

The NCRRA has also requested a meeting with KPLC officials to discuss these issues, but, we have been put off by being told that on the day and time we wanted to meet with them, they are having a lunch time function. But, they still haven't got back to us with an alternative day and time. We're all waiting for this. Are they trying to avoid us and our 'uncomfortable' questions? While they insolently continue with their power outages to us.

No comments: