President Uhuru Kenyatta is set to leave thousands of families without power when his term ends in two years since only 48 per cent out of 1.02 million targeted households have been connected to the national electricity grid.
Kenya Power, the utility firm charged with hooking households to the electricity mains, has connected 494,374 under a five-year subsidised project launched in September 2015.
“Accelerating access to electricity has been a priority national goal, acknowledging that electricity supply catalyses socio-economic development,” said managing director Bernard Ngugi.
LAST MILE PROJECT
“The Last Mile project targets to connect a total of 1.02 million customers out of which 494,374 have already been connected. Rural centres transform quite fast after they are connected to supply.”
The project funded by the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Kenyan government targeted customers situated near transformers and was to be carried out in three phases.
The plan now in the second phase has largely been implemented through the funding from AfDB with 60 per cent of the connected customers done through the bank’s funding.
WORLD BANK
The government has funded about 30 per cent and the rest done by the World Bank.
The project may delay further as AfDB plans to audit the first phase where some 224,952 customers were hooked to the grid through its funding.
The lender, which blacklisted a Chinese firm involved in the project last month invited firms to tender for audit services, a process that will subsequently inform support for future Kenya Power projects.
EVALUATION
“The independent development evaluation function of the African Development Bank Group invites individual consultants to indicate their interest for the impact evaluation of the Last Mile Connectivity Project in Kenya,” said the bank.
“The evaluation will focus on the bank-funded Last Mile Connectivity Project approved in 2014 and scheduled to close in 2020.”
Chinese company Sinotec contracted by Kenya Power for the second phase of Last Mile Project is said to have misrepresented its experience to meet qualification requirements for several AfDB-funded projects in what may have compromised the quality of connections.
