61st, 62nd outages & fluctuations

Between 11.15 am and 11.30 am, yesterday, the power went off again. This time trying to get the emergency to answer was futile and I discovered the possible reason for this when I called Ms. Faith Njuguna in despair. From her I found out that the function that they had to cancel on the 25th of last month (August), was taking place then.

So, while they continued with their shoddy service to us, they were having a lavish luncheon function at their customers expense. Now, we know what they do with the hiked up rates they charge us every month regardless of the quality of service!

I found out that the power came back after about 20-30 minutes.

But, again, at around 4.30 pm it went off, not to return till around 7.30 pm! This brings another observation that I, like many others, who also suffer when the power goes off. The matter of mobile phones and their battery charge. Unlike land-lines, which don't die during a power outage, these phones have a limited battery charge and need to be charged when low.

This is the predicament I found myself in yesterday. All my phones were battery dead and thank God for land lines. As I have one, I had to use this to try and call the various emergency numbers and when I could not get through to any of these, I tried Ms. Faith Njuguna's, again.

It took her a while to answer but she was still at this function and after I informed her of this 3rd outage within a 24 hour period, she gave her phone to somebody called Tsuma who claimed that they were still fixing the same problem which had caused an outage at midnight and that the power would be back in another 30 minutes. This was at around 5.30 pm.

Unfortunately, the power never returned after the claimed interval and the Muslims among us had to pray and open their fasts in the dark using alternative light sources. Those of us who use electricity to heat and/or cook our food had to either eat cold stuff or open their fasts with an alternative.

When I called Ms. Faith, again, I was told that it would now take 45 minutes, more! As is their habit, KPLC hardly keeps their word these days. They have become totally unreliable and horribly insolent. The stated time came and went with no power. So, I called Ms. Faith, yet again, and she was surprised that we still did not have power. She told me that according to her information we should have got our power back some time ago.

I was told that she would look into it and just a few minutes after hanging up - illumination! Was it some switch they pulled for this? And one wonders about the way KPLC communicates within itself. I am sure that some parts of Nyali got their power back, but, others, like us were still in darkness till after 7.30 pm.

This was an outage of over 3 hours with no satisfactory explanation for it.

This morning, there were fluctuations. Why? And for how long are we going to endure this impunity from this so-called power company?