Nairobi News

Kenya Power on Wednesday attributed delays in purchasing electricity tokens to a ‘technical hitch’.

The electricity generating company explained it was experiencing a failure in the system that is affecting the generation of tokens for users looking to top up their accounts.

In a statement, the utility company attributed the downtime to an anomaly in its IT systems.

“Our technical team is working to resolve an IT systems’ anomaly that is preventing prepaid token generation, hindering access to our contact centre via 97771,” the company said.

Also affected was the customer care platform which shut down communication in the contact centres and the company’s banking halls.

Last week, the company blamed the technical hitch that hit its electricity tokens purchasing service on a high number of transactions.

The hitch left thousands of Kenyans without power as they could not buy tokens through Kenya Power’s paybill number 888880 and were informed the “organisation receiving the payment is unavailable”.

The power distributor said it was working to restore normalcy at the contact centre, operations at their banking halls, and other customer touchpoints, even as many users of its services lambasted the company over its lacklustre handling of the matter.

“We thank our customers for their patience and apologise for any inconvenience caused,” it said.

Kenya Power was recently on the spot for giving preference to expensive thermal power over cheaper options such as geothermal and hydro, effectively setting up consumers for higher electricity prices.