Editor's Review

  • The power cut began on Wednesday over Sh1.2 billion bill.
  • The bill goes back to Kidero tenure.

Services have been halted at the Nairobi County government offices for the third day running after the Kenya Power terminated power supply.

The City Hall Annex, which houses the offices, owes the power supplier Sh1.2 billion in the outstanding power bills. 

By press time, only several offices were in operation due to a generator that cannot serve the entire building.  

The generator can only supply power to the county assembly and the governor’s wing leaving most offices to operate without power. 

“The outage began on Wednesday and we have been forced to use the generator to operate. We were told the power blackout was due to an unpaid bill,” said a security officer manning one of the entrances to the two buildings. 

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“These are already ongoing discussions but Kenya Power has insisted that they need a settlement of about Sh170 million before we can now agree on a way forward on the issue of what is outstanding to each other,” he added. 

Notably, Kenya Power is believed to owe City Hall some money, and there are talks of swapping the bills. The swap would see the Nairobi debt drop to about Sh400 million.  

According to the acting Nairobi County Secretary Justus Kathenge the county is optimistic that the situation will be resolved soon. 

“The issue is being looked at and it will be resolved soon. There has been an issue also with accessing Ifmis to invoice the payment as we cannot pay them manually. We are also looking into a debt swap as they owe us money and we also owe them some,” said Mr. Kathenge. 

However, this is not the first time that Kenya Power is disconnecting electricity to Nairobi County government buildings or institutions. The debt arrears began accumulating during the tenure of Evans Kidero.