The demise of the landline....?!

About a couple of weeks ago, I  got a call from a female voice (for some reason they are always averse to giving their names), who  claimed to  be from Orange Telkom.

First, despite telling her that I was hearing impaired and if she could please, talk a little louder, she insisted on talking in a low voice - no change in the decibel level.

Second, after getting her to repeat herself a number of times so that I could understand why she was calling me, it finally reached the conclusion that they were planning to do away with landlines and introduce wireless phones.

When I asked her the reason, I was told that they were upgrading their systems. 

Now, just earlier this year, they announced to all their customers who  were using wireless phones to change over from CDMA to GSM for a so-called minimal fee! 

So, when this confusing company calls me up to  inform me that they were changing from landlines to wireless, it did not make sense and told her, so. I also asked her the reason for changing to battery dependent technology in a country where the power supply was highly questionable. Since landlines were not dependent on power, it was very convenient to use when all of our cell phone batteries gave up their ghosts thanks to countless and unpredictable outages for days on end sometimes.

Those of us who have landlines, can, in the above scenario use these to get hold of the outside world despite there being no  power.

There is also the matter of costs. Calling landlines is cheaper from outside.

So, why is Orange Telkom changing? Don't they realize that we need a service that is not dependent on batteries? In fact, after a few years of having such a phone will result in the batteries not being available anymore because that particular model of  phone will have become redundant. Why do  these people create problems and needless expenses?

And finally, could Orange sensitize its employees regarding various kinds of disabilities and deal with them accordingly and not frustrate the people whom they call, please?

Garbage burning issues....

I have written about this umpteen number of times to various officialdom including NEMA to no avail.

So, I am writing this, yet again, since our County (they call themselves MC4), seems to be serious about the issue of garbage.

It is  now at least a month since I have been complaining to Mr. Waziri and others dealing with this  issue to no avail. Oh yes, they sent a car over with 3 to 4 people in it including the driver two of whom got out and went and studied the place where people are dumping garbage and also burning it at irregular intervals. Then, after doing this, they got back into the car and left at top speed. They never got back to me regarding what they were going to do about it, so I called Mr. Waziri again and asked him. He told me that he was waiting for feedback from his team and then would let me know.

I am still waiting and despite calling him subsequently, he has refused to answer his phone. Therefore, I sent him a whatsapp message which he finally read (the tick becomes double and turns blue), but, no reply.

Then, I decided to call his boss Mr. Ibrahim Basafar. At first, he wouldn't answer the phone but finally he did. When I told him about my woes, he refused to listen anymore and promptly told me to call Mr. Waziri who was in-charge of this area of Nyali. He did not let me finish my sentence that Mr. Waziri was not answering my queries and hence my calling him and instead cut off the phone. 

Are these 'officialdom' so busy or maybe arrogant, to deal with the work that they are employed by us (our taxpayers money goes to pay their very hiked up salaries and therefore we are their employers which they conveniently forget), to even answer their phones?!

This morning, parts of our estate (Umoja), was enveloped in smoke from two garbage burning sites. The one mentioned above and the other by the car wash people who have rented that empty plot next to our estate. These people collect garbage and start burning it anytime of the day or night. Sometimes even twice! I  visited them yesterday to request them to stop doing that and to put it in a bag and throw it at a designated site to which they agreed. But, that was all humbug. This morning they were burning it, again!

I also sent Mr. Waziri a whatsapp message which still has not been read as I write this.

Can the people concerned, please take some action? Or do they only work when the media are around clicking away  at their cameras?

The continued festering wound of noise during the ASK Show...

Since I wrote about this a couple of  days ago to  the NEMA County Director, Mr. Stephen Wambua, nothing has changed regarding the decibels at which music is played all night at this Showground.

Even as I write this, there is the boom, boom sound coming from there.

It would seem that many people who live in Nyali but are not at the receiving end of this racket, cannot understand why I  keep picking on the various authorities for not containing this noise.

While this ASK Show has been taking place at its present location since decades, the noise level has increased since the 1990s.

Unfortunately, our town planners have deemed it fit to also allow residential buildings to sprout all around this show ground.

In other towns and cities in the country, this is not always the case, e.g., Nairobi. There are very few residences close to the Showground, there. So, why is it that in Mombasa it has been allowed to the detriment of  the residents.

There seems to be no kind of  compromise by the Show convenors to allow for this state of affairs and one has to live within the environs of this ground to appreciate what I  am talking about.

Despite there being noise  pollution laws in place, they are not  applied here. Why?

So many of us work, have or are sick or have small children. Can these authorities tell us how we should deal with these, please?

Noise from the ASK Showground

It is now past 1.00 am in the morning (midnight), and most of us who live within hearing distance (and this distance can be measured not in metres, but in kilometres), of this contentious showground cannot get any sleep thanks to the continuous boom, boom kind of racket that is coming from there since this morning.

In the daytime it is not so obvious, but still  disturbing as it goes on and on.....

Now, it's night and it is terrible. Can the various officialdom in-charge of noise pollution PLEASE do their work and get these people to stop henceforth or get out of town with their yearly, nearly a week long racket?!

And if 'officialdom' thinks that they can assign a bedtime for the showgrounds near and far neighbours of 11.00 pm, like they do with other noisy events like weddings, etc., they had better NOT have this noise AT ALL HOURS! We want to live with as little noise as possible in our houses, please.

We are very fed up!!!!

Raziya (member of NCRRA on the environment committee)

Kenya power acting up, again!

I haven't written in quite a while regarding the questionable 'services' of our monopolistic power company, but, it's 'activities' of the past nearly two weeks compels me to do so.

Since, that Tuesday evening when some problem in Kipevu plunged most of Mombasa Island and the North Coast into darkness at least three times within minutes of each other, Kipevu has been the reason for all the subsequent outages we have been having, since.

At least, this is what Kenya Power tells us when asked.

Now, the other reason we have to wait for over an hour or more for power to be restored of late is that there is NOBODY out at Kipevu (it seems), who can fix the problem and a team has to get there from town and hence, the long waiting period.

Considering that Kipevu can only be accessed via two routes - via our perpetually traffic jammed Makupa Causeway and the other through KPA, which is equally jammed most times (I think), this accounts for the long time frame before we rejoin the 21st Century!

My question to Kenya Power is - why don't they station a team in Kipevu so that the waiting problem can be reduced? Also, what is it about Kipevu that it is the source of such outages, in the first place?

We, in Nyali, have been experiencing almost DAILY outages since that 'dark' Tuesday. Why?

Of course, there are other issues, too, but, I will write about those in due course, Insha'Allah.

Awaiting a response.

Re: Re: Kenya Power, it's 'emergency' numbers, etc., - more misadventures...

Soon after I sent off my last email on Wednesday evening regarding a few houses in our estate which had lost power since Tuesday morning and after over 24 hours of being shuttled into the dark ages by KPLC, the transformer that is  responsible for our power supply, suddenly blew up with a very loud bang at about 9.00 pm. 

This resulted in the whole line of houses, including my flat, losing power, too. So, the earlier few houses, now had more company.

Now, my take is that, maybe this could have been avoided IF, this monopolistic power company had addressed and solved the issue of the few houses that had lost power on Tuesday morning. They did not do this and maybe whatever it was that was ailing and caused their power to be cut off, got worse and more complicated because that was not solved...?!

Anyway, just like the KPLC, when informed of the symptoms of what had happened to their transformer immediately came and shut off everything, they could have with equal urgency and haste replaced the transformer, too, at the same time. But, they did not! Instead, when asked, we were told that, 'maybe, tomorrow....'

Yesterday, they showed up at around mid-morning to take the offending transformer and again when asked by a neighbour about when we would get our power back, the reply was very vague. She was told that maybe on Friday or even next week!!!!

No reason was given, of course. This, brought nasty thoughts to my and my neighbours' minds. This because of an earlier (a couple of weeks back), incidence of a KPLC employee who had asked for 2500/- from a company (where a friend works and who had told me about it), which had lost power for 6 days and were getting desperate. This company had personally gone to the offices of KPLC and their emergency offices, too, to get them to restore power to no avail. Why?

Therefore, we started getting suspicious about our own restoration of power and the time it would take to get back to normal supply. Maybe, there is a racket going on of fleecing the public to part with cash and giving them a hard time so that they will do so, just like our cops, etc. Seems like corruption is the order of the day in this country. We seem to be breathing, eating and literally wallowing in this horrible vice. Why, again?

Is this also the reason for the numbers of days that have suddenly increased before consumers get their power back? To harass them to the point of making them part with their hard earned cash, before 'service' is given....?!

I found out when I visited Kenya Power's Facebook page where umpteen numbers of people from all over are complaining about the same thing and using very colourful language for it, too. 

Kenya Power seems to be totally impervious to all the adverse publicity that it is getting. As was mentioned by a recipient of my emails - due to its monopoly in power provision. They couldn't care less about public opinion!

Finally, after umpteen phone calls, they agreed to solve our transformer problem in the afternoon. This arrived at our gates at exactly 6.30 pm, work started on it at 6.45 pm and finally finished at 8.45 pm when everybody in the estate got their light back, Alhamdulillah.

Now, my question is - why the delay? And this not the first time that this transformer has given up the ghost. But, every time, Kenya Power seems to prefer working in the dark (literally), than in the broad light of day. Again, why? This  time they had a choice to do so in the daytime, but deliberately arrived here after sunset and worked in the dark with flashlights, etc. One would imagine that it is easier and faster to work in the natural light of the sun...?!

Raziya

On Wed, May 6, 2015 at 9:34 PM, Shaileen Shah wrote:

Does ANYONE in KPLC respond?
Mr.Shaileen Shah:a client and a SHAREHOLDER of KPLC.

Re: Kenya Power, it's 'emergency' numbers, etc.,

Yes, very sad (which is a mild word to describe the situation). And the CEO helping....?! Fat chance! They don't have the sense to even answer these emails.

Another example of their incompetence and devil may care attitude has happened right in my estate, yesterday. 

A whole lot of houses which are on phase 2 of the power supply lost power early in the morning yesterday, right around the time that we in our block got ours back after them taking their time coming here and then fiddling around in the metre box for over half an hour.

Now, is that connected to the fact that as soon as we got our power back these houses further inside lost theirs and they have yet to get it back even after 24 hrs of outage? Was it just a coincidence that we got back power and they lost it? Very strange!!!

Then, one of the women finally managed to get through to their 'emergency' number and was given a reference number. I was told about this sometime in the afternoon and so smsed it to my contact after informing him about the outage. Till today, nothing has been done!!!

Will these irresponsible people compensate the umpteen numbers of consumers who are constantly losing their power and to add salt to a long festering wound, they also have to bear the brunt of the loss of spoilt items in their fridges, etc.?

Then there is the case of how the power company behaves regarding their highly inflated bills.

The customers have to make sure that they pay their bills on time never mind if they haven't yet received them. According to these awful people, it's the consumers responsibility (since they are highly IRRESPONSIBLE THEMSELVES AND UNACCOUNTABLE TO BOOT!), to go to their offices and ask for their bills to be able to pay them. Does this sound fair or just? Nowhere would this make sense other than in this country where there is no  law and customers have no rights to demand anything.

Like with all 'service' providers it's the consumers who are made to feel that they are doing the service providers a favour than the other way round. This power company is a perfect example of such an attitude.

So, according to KPLC, if they don't send you a bill and then you don't pay them on time because you haven't got it yet, it will not be a defense for you if they suddenly one fine day come and disconnect you for non-payment. Doesn't matter that they never sent you a bill in the first place!!!

They can be as irresponsible and insolent and inefficient as they like and please, the same will not be tolerated from the rest of us, the consumers, unfortunately.

We live in the most trying of times...

Raziya

On Wed, May 6, 2015 at 9:06 AM, Dr. Juzar Hooker
wrote:

Very very sad. The way of all monopolies, unfortunately. Perhaps the CEO could step in?

Sent from my iPad

On May 5, 2015, at 12:53 PM, Raziya Mohamedali wrote:

​'Afternoon!

It's been quite a while that I have written about  this redoubtable company, though, I  have written to them and about them on Facebook and commented regarding their various 'services'.

Today​, I thought of writing again because, these kinds of incidences seem to be happening all too often in this country (yes, country NOT county), and one wonders how we are EVER going to be so-called 'industrialized' by 2030. At the rate this monopolizing company responds to emergencies, I doubt it very much.

It came to my notice last evening that a friend who lives in Malindi had lost power since 4.00 pm. She had tried calling the much advertized emergency numbers 95551 umpteen numbers of  times to no avail. Nobody was answering.

Now, I don't think she's on twitter, etc., and her ONLY way of letting this awful so-called power company know of her predicament was via a phone and that too a mobile which runs on a battery. Unfortunately, this too, has been slowly dying so  you can imagine her frustration. I found out about this because she posted all this on whatsapp in our group.

This morning, I found out that her power had still not returned and her phone was about to give up the ghost, so I decided to help her...

I  called the chief engineer's number which I always call and he, mercifully answers most times. Anyway, I asked him if he could give me the name and number of somebody in Malindi who  could help my friend. He promptly did and I  passed on both of these to my friend. 

She called him and was rudely told to call the emergency number and quickly cut off. She tried these awful unresponsive numbers, yet again, to no avail and sent me a message about what had happened. Therefore, I  called my pet engineer again and told him what his counterpart (?), had done. 

Now, can Kenya Power get this once and for all through it's collective head, please! We, the long suffering public, would NOT bother ANY of their 'officials' when we lose power IF THEIR so-called EMERGENCY number/s were promptly answered and responded to pronto. 

Because, the whole emergency  'mechanism' at KPLC is on the blink, is why we use other means of getting through to them. Otherwise, we truly DO NOT want to bother these 'big bosses' or don't they know?!

Coming back to my Malindi friend; after having talked to the engineer, he in turn called the Malindi KPLC guy and the response was that my friend got an sms from him telling her that her power would be back in the afternoon!!!!

Well, it is afternoon now, so I hope that she will have got back to the 21st century and she has probably had her fridge defrosted with perishable items gone bad or about to. That would make it a nearly 24 hour outage with no remorse or apology, etc., from KPLC. And if it still hasn't returned than God and this awful power company alone know when it will return.

​Will ANYTHING EVER change at Kenya Power...?!

Kenya Power, it's 'emergency' numbers, etc.,

It's been quite a while that I have written about  this redoubtable company, though, I  have written to them and about them on Facebook and commented regarding their various 'services'.

Today​, I thought of writing again because, these kinds of incidences seem to be happening all too often in this country (yes, country NOT county), and one wonders how we are EVER going to be so-called 'industrialized' by 2030. At the rate this monopolizing company responds to emergencies, I doubt it very much.

It came to my notice last evening that a friend who lives in Malindi had lost power since 4.00 pm. She had tried calling the much advertized emergency numbers 95551 umpteen numbers of  times to no avail. Nobody was answering.

Now, I don't think she's on twitter, etc., and her ONLY way of letting this awful so-called power company know of her predicament was via a phone and that too a mobile which runs on a battery. Unfortunately, this too, has been slowly dying so  you can imagine her frustration. I found out about this because she posted all this on whatsapp in our group.

This morning, I found out that her power had still not returned and her phone was about to give up the ghost, so I decided to help her...

I  called the chief engineer's number which I always call and he, mercifully answers most times. Anyway, I asked him if he could give me the name and number of somebody in Malindi who  could help my friend. He promptly did and I  passed on both of these to my friend. 

She called him and was rudely told to call the emergency number and quickly cut off. She tried these awful unresponsive numbers, yet again, to no avail and sent me a message about what had happened. Therefore, I  called my pet engineer again and told him what his counterpart (?), had done. 

Now, can Kenya Power get this once and for all through it's collective head, please! We, the long suffering public, would NOT bother ANY of their 'officials' when we lose power IF THEIR so-called EMERGENCY number/s were promptly answered and responded to pronto. 

Because, the whole emergency  'mechanism' at KPLC is on the blink, is why we use other means of getting through to them. Otherwise, we truly DO NOT want to bother these 'big bosses' or don't they know?!

Coming back to my Malindi friend; after having talked to the engineer, he in turn called the Malindi KPLC guy and the response was that my friend got an sms from him telling her that her power would be back in the afternoon!!!!

Well, it is afternoon now, so I hope that she will have got back to the 21st century and she has probably had her fridge defrosted with perishable items gone bad or about to. That would make it a nearly 24 hour outage with no remorse or apology, etc., from KPLC. And if it still hasn't returned than God and this awful power company alone know when it will return.

​Will ANYTHING EVER change at Kenya Power...?!

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.