Time to own up

KENYA Power must get its act together and deliver quality service. For several months, the power utility has been in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. Since December, electricity consumers have perpetually complained of inflated bills, which elicited public outrage, with some activists resorting to legal recourse to save citizens from a predatory agency.

The firm has since tried to cool tempers by assuring the public that the problem has been resolved. In reality, however, that has not happened; consumers continue to receive unjustifiably higher bills.

Kenya Power is in the eye of a storm again, this time over delays in remission of tokens for prepaid users. On Tuesday, the company came out to clarify and assure the public that the glitch had been resolved and that they would henceforth receive the tokens promptly.

Hopefully, this will work. Even so, it should not have taken so long for the company to explain that it had been experiencing technical problems, hence the delays. This only came after public outrage – which makes it difficult to take the company’s explanation at face value.

That notwithstanding, questions have been raised about the rates, with the concern being that the tokens are incredibly costly.

It is recalled that when the complaints about inflated bills first emerged, reports indicated that Kenya Power had spent a lot of money during campaigns for last year’s elections and was out to recoup it. The company, however, denied the allegations.

Whatever the case, something is not right. The company must own up and tell the public what exactly is happening.