Fwd: Unbearable noise coming from the ASK Showground....

Despite having written this last night as an appeal to the ASK Showground authorities as well as NEMA (which is proving itself to  be a very 'cosmetic' outfit without ANY TEETH WHATSOEVER!), there seems to be no reduction in the noise level and sounds like we are in for  another sleepless night!

As Kenyans we are known to be quite lawless in ALL of our dealings with officialdom, and this seems to be just another example of how far this lawlessness goes. Though, there are environmental laws in place regarding noise, it seems that these are applied selectively - only when it suits officialdom.

In nearly in every other town in this lawless country of ours, this ASK Show is held quite far from the town and especially residential areas, except in Mombasa. Why? If these organizers of the 'show' insist on playing their boom, boom and ear splitting 'music' all through the night, we the residents of Nyali and all those within hearing distance of their racket have to insist that they henceforth hold this obnoxious 'show' on the outskirts of town and not within it's boundaries, please.

We are getting thoroughly FED UP of this persistent racket that we are inundated with for 5 days and the insolent attitude of it's organizers who are ignoring the residents' appeal. In fact, we thoroughly HATE IT!!!!

Please get out of town and stay out as long as you want to make a racket.

Unbearable noise coming from the ASK Showground....

Every year we, who live in Nyali in the environs of the ASK Showground DREAD this event! 

Why? The racket that comes out of that place is terrible and gives us sleepless nights and headachy days..... for 5 CONTINUOUS DAYS!!!!!

There is  a NEMA noise pollution law that says that any sound should not travel beyond 30 meters from the source, but, this one travels far beyond that limit. In fact, it's heard on the Island of Mombasa, too.

Then, the unfortunate part of all this is that, it goes on 24 hours a day for all the 5 days that the 'show' is on. Most of us HATE it!!!!

Do you people really care about the effect loud and sustained noise has on the human psyche? Please, do think about this and reduce the racket. It will be much appreciated.

Neighbours and noise

I believe that people who live in close proximity to each other should not disturb their neighbours with their obnoxious behaviour.

One of these is playing loud vibrating kind of music.

The reason I am compelled to write this is because I have one such very insensitive neighbour who since early this morning and whenever she is at home, insists on playing this kind of boom, boom music despite having been requested to lower the volume every time she does this which is practically EVERYDAY!!!!

This set me thinking about the kind of  character she is...

Is she trying to drown out her very disturbing thoughts with noise? One wonders at this... If true, she needs to see a shrink!

Or maybe she is deaf?

Or she is intentionally trying to 'entertain' her unwilling neighbours?

Or she is deliberately being offensive? But why?

As far as we know, we do not disturb her in like manner ALL the time!

I wish I knew her contact so that I would have sent her this email, too, which would, I believe, have resulted in her reducing the volume to a more 'civilized' level.... I  hope and pray.

A plea to the government...

I think most Kenyans are going to agree with me when I plead with our government to PLEASE get rid of Kenya Power completely and hire a whole new lot who are accountable, ethical, honest, responsible people who will start laying the foundation of using affordable, renewable energy unlike the extremely 'ugly' outfit that is currently holding the whole country to 'ransom' with the monopolistic attitude and practice.

While they might have advertised in the papers that Nyali residents were going to lose power from 7.00 am till 6.00 pm, nothing could be farther from the truth. 

Yes, we did lose power promptly at the said time, but like what happens EVERYTIME that such times of restoration are given, they  are unfortunately NEVER adhered to and we always end up with outages that last for 10 or more hours!

Take the latest one of yesterday - we were treated to the 'dark ages' for over 15 HOURS!!!! And as though this  was not enough, after a couple of  hours of respite, we were plunged into a time warp, again, at just after 1.00 am (midnight). The reason given was that due to their massive 'work' that was done during the 15 hours of outage, the work had been done in a shoddy manner and one of the connections caught fire. It took them an hour to restore supply.

Then, since morning, we have lost power at least two times and both times the reasons were that the previous day's work was being rectified.

We really dread reading these advertisements in the paper that a particular area would be losing power on a particular day. It is becoming nightmarish reading them since we know what they entail.

What we would like to know is that why does this awful company employ half-baked 'professionals' who barely know their job?

Then to make matters worse, their quality of 'service' is inversely proportional to their extremely hiked up tariffs. How dare they keep increasing their rates during such extremely trying times? 

We are truly FED UP of this disgusting  power company. Please get rid of the whole lot of them and replace them with the above mentioned people. The current lot will never help in getting our country to become industrialized by 2030 or even by the end of the century!!!!

The height of insolence and third class 'service'!

As if to  show their 'power' at holding the whole country at their mercy and impose their monopoly on us, this disgusting company switched off our power yesterday for  over 12 hours!!!!

While they are supposed to have advertized in the media that they would be switching off till 5.00 pm, they are not a company that keeps it's times or word.

When this time came and passed, I  called the Regional Manager here (Mombasa), since nobody else was answering, and while he answered initially telling me that they were restoring it  in phases and it  would be back in a few minutes before dark, this did not happen.

Well, as usual, these people think nothing of telling you untruths and last night was one of  them.

When darkness descended with still no power, I tried calling his number yet again, but this  time the prompt voice kept claiming that his number was 'unrecognizable'!

I  must ask Safaricom, how these people manage to programme their phones into  doing this. This is the second 'official' from Kenya Power whose phone has been telling me that his number is unrecognizable, yet, a little while before, I had talked to  him on the the same number.

I have also found that my emails to them with 'CCs' to the media really bothers them, but, unfortunately not enough to give their consumers a reliable and efficient service. How sad.

Yesterday, due to their over 12 hours outage in this extreme heat, our refrigerators defrosted and things started going off. Are they going to compensate us? And should they, what kind of hassles are they going to make us go through to do so?

So anybody out there who deals with affordable Solar and/or wind power, could please come forward so that we could give this monopolistic and awful company a good kick out of business?!

We are all collectively FED UP and would like them to depart and others more accountable and professional to take their place with affordable services.

We still do not know the cause of  their over 12 hours of so-called 'maintenance' outage,  yesterday....

Outages continue unabated....

What is the matter with our monopolistic and highly inefficient and unaccountable and insolent power company?

Since last Saturday evening, power in Nyali seems to have returned to it previous ridiculous unpredictable ways.

On that day, they first told me that it would be back in about half an hour (they can never restore it in anything less than this time, it seems), but when this period came and went, I  was told that it would take longer and this  time they wouldn't commit themselves. It did not return till after 2 hours!!! No reason other than a problem at Kipevu was given.

The second time it went off was on Tuesday evening and this time it took a little longer than half an hour to return.

Last night was the 3rd time in the week when it went off again and did not come back till after over an hour at least in our neighbourhood but in other places it took even longer.

Other than yesterday, when  no reason was given for the outage, the previous ones were blamed on Kipevu and some problem further afield.

Now, in this unbearable heat the people who answer expect you to keep your temper. One needs to be of angelic disposition to be this way and especially when you are given no reason or time scale that you will suffer in this awful heat not to mention that the suffering it is going to cause due to health reasons.

Now to come back to this awful company's plan of imposing pre-paid meters everywhere. This will make them take our money IN ADVANCE for shoddy services and they will become even more unaccountable and insolent because, with power surges our meters will run at top speed eating away at our hard earned credit and spoiling our electrical devices and the same goes for fluctuations. Unfortunately, they will then least be bothered about entertaining our complaints. After all they will have been paid for their questionable services in advance like most other 'services' in this banana republic of ours, they won't be bothered....

So how is Kenya Power going to deal with their shoddy services when people are on pre-paid? After all they have been promising us for  YEARS that it will improve but has not done so...., yet.

BEWARE - The disabled of Mombasa County!!!

Why is it that the County of Mombasa is so insensitive to the plight of people with various disabilities - visible and invisible (to the general public)? By invisible I mean for  example that a person could be sight impaired or hearing impaired but these disabilities are not necessarily immediately apparent to the public till they interact with them. And these are just two examples for there are many disabilities which are invisible.

Mombasa County officials are not only insensitive towards the disabled but are also totally IGNORANT.

In fact, I would suggest that with their welcome sign at the beginning of the County, they should add that this place is ONLY for the totally FIT and ABLE-bodied and woe betide anybody who happens to be otherwise. They will not be tolerated or understood!

Let me explain what happened to a tuk tuk and it's driver and the organization that hires it, further.

On the 12th of February 2014, the Dear Diary Initiative (DDI), office got a call from Coast General Hospital asking them to help in transporting a disabled and sick patient home. Since DDI is a charity outfit and is specifically for the disabled and underprivileged members of society, they sent the tuk tuk to Coast General to pick up this patient. The tuk tuk also has a clearly visible to all sign on it's windshield of the disabled. So the driver went as close to the entrance as possible to pick this person up. But just as he reached the entrance a Council askari descended on him and very rudely got in and started shouting at the driver to move and that he was under arrest.

The driver kept trying to explain to him that he was there to pick up a disabled and sick patient and also  there was no other traffic around that he was hindering, either. But this askari refused to listen, look or think about what he was being told. Why?

If the driver had tried to find a parking (and he wasn't even parked at the entrance), how would a disabled person get to him?

Anyway, he was unceremoniously dragged to the Council where he was locked up and the tuk tuk impounded. Nobody was listening to anything that this driver was saying. The tuk tuk's reg. No. is KTWA 677E and the driver's name Kumbe Kalama.

One of the DDI employees, who is also disabled, went to the Council to sort things out with them, but, it got her nowhere as NOBODY there was ready to listen including the magistrate.

Now, what is this 'court' and magistrate for if the accused are not allowed to defend themselves and like kangaroo courts of yester year, passes questionable 'judgements'. Is this justice?

Can our Judiciary please look into this?

At the Court, he was fined 11,000/- before the vehicle was released. The receipt No. is 0783350 and the case number is M532/2014.

Subsequent visits and a letter dated 14th February 2014, have gone unanswered and now over 2 months later, the money is still being withheld for wrongful arrest.

So, all the disabled of this County - BEWARE!!!!

We are dealing with extremely semi- and illiterate and insensitive people in the County of Mombasa. Take care how you go about your business whatever it might be and best wishes.

Now, fluctuations...

Despite my email of yesterday, we spent the whole evening, the whole night and this morning dealing with fluctuations. 

Those of us who have devices to  protect us from this 'dirty' and damaging power constantly found them switching from red to orange and back again.

Trying to  call Kenya Power again proved an exercise in futility. And btw, when it tells us to report these incidences on Twitter, may I bring them back to the country they are expecting this in - that when we do not have power, many of us do not also have access to the Internet since our devices are connected to this power. Then, not everybody has a twitter account and the majority are not even connected to the Internet!!!

So, please find another way for your consumers to inform you about your shoddy services since you refuse to  answer phones.

Maybe we can go back to learning how to communicate via drumbeats and/or smoke signals...?

Outages started, again...

Why is it that Kenya Power cannot give a consistent supply of electricity to it's consumers? Yet, it has the cheek to ask for advance payment for a 'service' which is highly unacceptable and pathetic in the extreme. I am talking about their pre-paid ambitions. While they LOVE our money, they unfortunately for us, do not do their work with the same zeal.

How dare they even think about making the whole country forcibly go pre-paid in a set-up like this.

I am talking about today and the many days to come when the rains start in full swing. At the first sound of thunder, the power went off in Nyali. And as usual, trying to get these incompetents on the phone is becoming an exercise in futility. 

I  have a suspicious feeling that they deliberately switch their phones off, since they do not want to be asked 'difficult' questions that some people like me will start asking them. They have no answer and no excuse to give us it seems and to add insult to injury there is no apology for  their shoddy 'service' either.

Now, let me inform all of you who still are on post paid accounts. Count yourselves lucky since you can still fight for the questionable bills that this company is in the habit of sending to you. You can as least go and complain to them and raise hell if needs be in their offices if not attended to. This because you are mercifully still on their post-paid system.

I have been told by the many friends and family who are on their pre-paid one, that they truly regret this since these meters seem to swallow money like water. When a couple of them went to Electricity house to complain they started getting a run-a-round i.e. an unofficial 'tour' of the various offices there to get their errant, 'thirsty' meters investigated. Of course nothing happened at the end of it. The frustrated people left their complaints not entertained at all. 

With such an unaccountable company supplying us with this gateway to the 21st Century, they have no business forcing people to accept their pre-paid arrangement.

People who are on post-paid lately have also been receiving highly inflated bills. I wonder why? Are Kenya Power trying to intimidate it's consumers into accepting the pre-paid arrangement?

I know of one poor family in the North Coast who  have no electrical gadgets or even a fridge or fan, and who till recently were paying no more than 700/- a month suddenly get 10 times that amount!

When the man of the house went to their offices to do battle and asked to see the seniors, these 'juniors' quickly tried placating him and telling him that they had made a mistake by sending him anothers bill!!!! That he should come back again the following Tuesday (this was a Friday), when they would rectify his bill.

After reading this account, does anybody think that this power company is at all accountable, responsible, ethical and professional? I am sure that there are many others all over the country who have similar stories to tell. So, imagine if we were all on pre-paid? Post paid is nightmarish enough.

Oh, just now while writing this the power went off a second time today and trying to call an Eng. named Biwott whose number is supposed to be valid this time the prompt voice kept telling me that it found the number 'unrecognizable'!!! How strange....

So, with this I will leave you  to think about  this disgusting and incompetent power company which is holding the whole country at it's mercy.

Now that rains are supposedly here...

At the first clap of thunder and lightening last night, the lights went off at around midnight!

Does this mean that now that our rainy season seems to have started, this will be the norm where we spend an unbelievable amount of time in darkness not being able to join the 21st Century with all that the rest of humanity does, but, we in Kenya and in particular our little 'banana republic' style, Mombasa  with its numerous residents will be spending time twiddling their thumbs waiting for hours on end for power to return to be able to continue with their lives as best they can and getting highly frustrated in the process?

Since midnight last night we have lost power 5 times and it takes Kenya Power (really?), an average of over an hour to restore it. They also do not answer their phones as they are always wont to do.

So, Kenya Power (?), could you please let us in Mombasa and in particular Nyali residents know what kind of improvement you have been gloating to us that you have been doing since last year? Telling us that these outages will be a thing of the past and they still are not? When will they be?

Then, you have the temerity to even think of putting us on pre-paid meters where you will then completely wash your collective hands of any responsibilities regarding our power expenses. When we are post paid we at least have a way of coming to you with contentious bills but with pre-paid we will have no way of disputing hiked up charges. You will be having all the advantages when our meters run out of control due to power surges etc., and we try to get this through to you.

So, Mombasa residents take care before you agree to this utter nonsense of pre-paid till Kenya Power can guarantee to supply us with clean and 

reliable power..... IF, they can!

Do not agree to pre-paid as you will end up paying more at the end of the month than your post paid bills. There are also many other contentious issues where Kenya Power will not even entertain your complains. I can see nothing but frustrations for us and many headaches while they will be sitting pretty without a single problem on their hands. They will be dangling the fact that if we do not keep topping up come what may, we will be the losers, not them - long story short.

What is going on with Kenya Power....?

Since the last time I wrote regarding the insolence of this power company, we've had numerous outages and fluctuations but the last couple of times including this morning they are becoming unbearable.

First, why are we suddenly losing power countrywide

so frequently? This has happened not just once since the year has started but lots of times! Only in a state of EMERGENCY would a 'civilized' country go into total blackout! Have we been having some kind of such an emergency lately? If so, please let us know, so we can prepare for it.

For unlike Kenya Power, we the citizens, know better and would like to prepare for such an eventuality.

Secondly, and while not as awful as the first one since we live in a banana republic - we've had the whole of the Coast plunged into total darkness for no reason in particular or one that this awful company and it's minions alone know about. Why the extreme secrecy?

Now, coming to the latest outage of hours, this morning we lost power again and when I  tried calling the various numbers given to me by their owners, none were answered.

One sent me an sms giving me another's number to call as he will be in Nairobi for a week!

When I tried that number, it also went unanswered and so did another one. Why?

After over 2 hours of outage and fuming at the predicament this power company persistently puts me and others in, I tried again desperately trying to inform them that we had lost power and trying to find out when 'normalcy' would resume. The number was surprisingly answered and I was being told that it would return in a couple of minutes!

Also, he told me that he'd been in a meeting and had just come out.

Now, could these people tell us what is the point of having countless meetings but no improvement in 'service'? Maybe, they have these meetings to knock their heads together on how best to frustrate an already frustrated public?!

So, Kenya Power, start explaining....

Kenya Power's so-called 'promises'

On the very day, or rather night (thanks to our equally redoubtable railway system), that I got back on the 16th of January 2014, I have discovered that Kenya Power is as useless and unaccountable as they have ALWAYS been.

Starting from that night, we have lost power umpteen numbers of times in Nyali and the whole of the Coast, too since the past two days.

While we unnecessarily celebrated 50 years of Independence; what did we really have to show for it?!

Without a reliable supply of power, there can hardly be any development. Without proper infrastructure, the same. 

At the Coast, especially Mombasa there has been the minimum of development since Independence, though the rest of the country Nairobi in particular is something else. 

Officialdom at Kenya Power reassured me last year that our constant outages and fluctuations would be a thing of the past by the end of last year.

Nothing of the kind has transpired! Everything is the same - business as usual. The same old unanswered calls, no apologies and no explanations.

Since the past two days, we, at the Coast have been experiencing total blackouts for no reason in particular. Of course without explanations, what else are we to think...?

Is this awful power company ever going to change its ways and be accountable, professional, ethical, etc., to it's consumers? As far as Nyali residents are concerned, they are becoming known for their many untruths and losing their already tainted reputation. They do not keep their word!

When will they start doing so...?!