Saturday, April 26, 2014

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.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

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.