Kenya Power offices on Aga Khan Walk in Nairobi.
Nairobi County’s unpaid electricity bill more than doubled to Sh3.01 billion between March and November last year, underlining Kenya Power’s struggles to recover money from devolved governments.
Disclosures by the National Treasury show that Nairobi accounted for more than two-thirds of the Sh4.37 billion that the 47 counties owed the utility firm as of end of November 2024.
As of February last year, City Hall’s unpaid electricity bill was Sh1.35 billion out of the total Sh3.53 billion that all counties owed Kenya Power at the time.
Kenya Power has been struggling to recover money for electricity supplies to the counties and last year sought debt collectors. But the Sh840 million surge in unpaid bills signals that the firm did not succeed in the recovery plan.
“Notably, Nairobi County Government accounts for the largest portion of this debt, totaling Sh3,011,878,481.04. Accumulation of the pending bills has occurred since the establishment of the County Governments,” the Treasury says in a report tabled in Parliament.
It did not, however, give the amounts that the other countries owe Kenya Power.
Earlier disclosures had shown that Mombasa owed Sh296 million while Kiambu was third with a Sh217 million debt as of February last year.
Counties have continued to defy directives to prioritise the settlement of the Kenya Power bills.
Recovering the debts is key to pushing Kenya Power’s revenues as the company continues to increase electricity sales.
Kenya Power’s electricity sales grew to 10,516 Gigawatt-hours in the year ended June 2024, a rise of 2.76 percent compared to 10,233GWh the previous year.
Faced with mounting unpaid bills, Kenya Power was forced to write off an additional Sh2 billion in unpaid electricity bills that it lost hope of recovering as of June 2024, bringing the cumulative amount written off to Sh19.28 billion.
Kenya Power says that it targets to recover a significant chunk of the debt from counties and national government entities.
“Management has engaged with the various counties and Government organs to settle the outstanding debt which is a significant percentage of the outstanding debt. The timeframe is June 30th, 2025,” Kenya Power says in its annual report for the 2023/24 year.
Besides tapping debt collectors, Kenya Power also said it would step up disconnections in premises of defaulting clients besides demanding higher security deposits from the defaulters.
But disconnecting counties has in the past failed. For example, City Hall has severally impounded vehicles owned by Kenya Power, in retaliation after the electricity distributor disconnected power over the debts.
