So its been 8 months and for some reason, today my memory was jolted and I remembered my hitherto abandoned blog. Maybe it was the date today 1-11-11....but more likely, the morning cold shower courtesy of KenyaPower (formerly known as Kenya Power and Lighting Company). I think the change in name to some extent was ideal....they just acknowledged what was already common knowledge in the public domain - that they are not in the business of lighting and they are not much of a company anyway, at least not one many Kenyans are willing to keep.
A few months ago, I had the pleasure (when I do not have a choice, I choose pleasure) of being one of the guinea pigs (did I just call myself a pig from guinea?) for a badly-electrocuted executed project by Kenya Power. I had my meter changed from post-paid to prepaid. I think this is change we should embrace, putting me in control of my power consumption. I was therefore pretty excited to be among the first (few thousands) of Kenyans to make this giant leap forward. The excitement did not last long as I soon discovered that I needed a degree in Mathematics, Statistics, Legal Technology, Logistics Management, Criminology, Public Administration and Juvenile Justice to interpret and manage the prepaid billing (if you can call it billing)....My stints at Department of Electrical Engineering and School of Computer Science have proved useless when it comes to understanding how the prepaid costing is done.
Why would Kenya Power make the system so complex? Why not settle on a tariff like the mobile phone companies have done? I would be much happier knowing Kshs 500 buys me say 20 units of power (in kWH - at least my Electrical Engineering comes handy here). Currently, this amount fluctuates based on so many varied factors making the process very hard to understand for a mere mortal like me!
Just when I though I had mastered the science of managing my power consumption (and that was the main selling point for this prepaid technology), I got a shocker this morning! I woke up to find I had no power....and I could hear the meter beeping - to the 'unschooled' this happens when you have less than 20 units of power. I went to check the meter and it reads -4.14....how did I go into negative overnight? I have not subscribed to an overdraft facility with Kenya Power! I am normally very credit-shy. Seems my prepaid meter has now moved to postpaid, if only they could allow me to continue consuming and then pay....Urrrghhhh!
I am off to go investigate this with Kenya Power...assuming the strike (like their power) is actually off.
At least you can be thankful that the cold shower has jolted me into some action on this front.
I would be happy sad to hear your experiences with Kenya Power.
