Kenya Power to kick out third party token vendors following public outcry
Kenya Power Company will terminate its contracts with third parties token vendors VendiT and Dynamo in the next three months after public outcry over unsatisfactory services.
This after the company’s management, together with the Ministry of Energy and Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), on Friday appeared before a parliamentary committee and admitted that power customers have been overcharged for the last four months.
Kenya Power said there have been several reasons that led to consumers being overcharged and apportioned part of the blame on third parties VendiT and Dynamo.
The two vendors currently handle 35% of the token purchases on behalf of the company and charge a fee for it, thus making power more expensive to the consumers.
But with the continuous public uproar, Kenya Power now says it is ready to terminate the said contracts with the third party vendors but that will take sometime before it is done.
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Answering a questions from committee member Narok Senator Ledama Ole Kina on how long it will take to put in place automated systems that will eliminate third parties vendors, Kenya Power Managing Director Ken Tarus said:
“We expect that within two to three months the others (token vendors) because of the speed and efficiency of operations now will automatically get out of our operations. We will also be looking at their contract with a view of taking any exit clause that exists.”
ERC, on its part, promised to harmonise power tariffs for Pre-paid customers to create token uniformity irrespective of the time of the month, an issue which has always caused confusion among power consumers.
“There are components in the tariffs that we want to harmonise to make sure that they do not vary in a span of a month,” said ERC Director General, Pavel Oimeke.
However, the harmonization exercise will not affect the current arrangement where customers, who consume up to 50 units of electricity a month, are accorded discount rates.