Outages galore!

This might sound like a stuck record, but we in Nyali, have so many outages and fluctuations that it is strange.

There is something VERY WRONG with our power supply and the way it is managed by Kenya Power - totally ineffectual and full of incompetence. To us it looks like they fix one issue, but create another and it goes on and on and on..... ad infinitum!

From Sat/Sun night (midnight), we suddenly had an outage and our new chief engineer, Mr. Mohammed Amiyo, would not answer his phone, but mercifully Kennedy Owino, did, thank God. He told me that there was a problem at the substation and sure enough we got our power back within a few minutes.

But, this started a whole series of outages when morning came, yesterday. In total we had 4 to 5 outages throughout the day! Why is this? Is Kenya Power working with outdated equipment and if not, what really is this persistent problem of outages?

We get the impression that they are working with many shortcomings one of which is manpower. 

For example, there is the matter of trucks and the people sent around to fix things. A couple of days ago I reported fluctuations from 8.30 am but KPLC came after 8 hours. Their excuse - the truck was somewhere in Bamburi and could not come till they finished THAT work and THEN come our way. Why is there a shortage of these in a big town like Mombasa?

Whenever, we are doing any work (which is nearly everything), that involves power, we are always on tenterhooks that whatever we are currently doing will suddenly all go to waste due to a power outage or fluctuation even if it lasts for a few minutes or seconds. It is terrible living in this kind of set-up.

Then, there is the case of sudden outages in the night for people who are old, disabled, etc. I personally have multiple disabilities two of which are vision and balance. When the light goes, it spells disaster for  me. There are many out there who have similar and/or worse problems, but does our power company care even a bit? Of course not because they are not improving, but regressing their 'services'.

When will this power company ever become responsible and accountable to its consumers?