It's Vision 2030 OR KPLC. We can't have both.

Let’s put it plainly. In this century, at least in my own opinion, the key to success or failure in economic advancement is energy. Technology may come a close second, but with the advent of the “open source-open use” ideology and the growth in the relevance of social media in business, there is little or no chance that any one entity, or country, can have any kind of monopoly on technology. I mean, an innovation today in the US will land in Nairobi within a day or maybe two at the most. In fact in some cases we are actually ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to tech stuff. If you don’t agree then maybe you have never heard of a thing called MPESA. Still, this is another discussion altogether.

This great country has the biggest economy in the region and the most potential to achieve the much touted “African Tiger” status but we run literally on air. Between KPLC and the ERC we have designed the perfect system for failure. In fact, things are so bad that KPLC themselves have a stand-by generator. (!) It’s not that they are on a mission to frustrate us but rather that they are completely incapable to deliver.  That’s just it.

My prodding of the @kenyapower twitter account representative reveals that at last count KPLC has approximately 1.4 million customers. Compare that number with Oparanya’s mathematics that set the total population of Kenya at 38 million. Sad isn’t it. Now off course, KPLC customers are more likely than not to come in “households” which in the Kenyan situation of 4 babies per woman, would need for us to divide the total population by 6. This means that KPLC has a possible market of slightly over 6 million. The @kenyapower twitter handler mentioned that about 300,000 of their customers are in industry or are otherwise purely “business” users which leaves 1.2 million “households” connected to KPLC. Given that Oparanya’s mathematics puts the potential at 6million, KPLC are the proud owners of 20% market share in a market where there’s no competition.(!)

Naturally the numbers I have presented above should not be taken straight out of the bottle because there are many other socio-economic factors at play. And at the end of the day this is just “sufuria Economics”. Nonetheless, fact is that KPLC has 1.4 million customers in the same market where Safaricom has 17Million. Now, no matter how removed the two businesses are from each other  this disparity is quite damning, especially considering that, at least in my book, mobile telephony would be considered a luxury service while electricity supply is under the basic needs category.

But wait, there’s more. KPLC at current has approximately 7,000 employees. This means that they have one employee to every 200 customers. This is the reason why they have such hopeless customer care service and probably a big reason why they make such big profits. They are grossly understaffed. Indeed in recent times KPLC has turned to outsourcing. Tragically, in their wisdom, they have chosen to outsource the technical work (the very heart of KPLC) to independent contractors. Needless to say the results have been disastrous. 

Firstly, because of the lucrative contracts being offered for the technical work, KPLC is hemorrhaging engineers and technical staff who find it more profitable to set up private companies to do the work. Secondly the quality assurance system has completely gone berserk. After all, private contractors are not known for their dedication to corporate values or customer service. So, KPLC now have an entire army of people out there who are wearing their colours but are not necessarily fighting from their corner. It’s a corporate image nightmare. The long and short of all this is that what happened to Telkom and to KANU is not far away where KPLC is concerned.

In their defense, KPLC are talking about a lot of behind the scenes investments and work that will begin to bear fruit in 2013. I don’t buy it; and going by the pyramid scheme that they call pre-paid billing, I will only believe it when I see it.

Then there’s the architecture of the whole system. You see, KPLC do not actually generate power, they are merely distributors. KenGen is the company that generates power and according to the Energy Act 2006, they more or less have a monopoly too because no one else is allowed to generate power in excess of 3000kw. The same law gives a virtual monopoly to KPLC. Consequently, KenGen have no choice but to sell to KPLC which means that KPLC dictate the terms. We the consumers have no choice but to buy from KPLC which (again) means that KPLC can dictate terms. The set up makes all of us slaves to KPLC.

Still, there’s hope because as sure as even Moi one day stepped down, nothing last forever and one day the MoE will trash that rubbish Energy Act and write a new one. When that day comes, we will finally have taken control of our destiny. Until then, the choice is very simple keep KPLC and the ERC and forget about Vision 2030.

Image Courtesy of @disasporadical