MONOPOLY OF POWER AND THE URINE I have just paid Ksh. 75580 hard Kenyan currency to the Kenya Power and Lighting Co. Ltd, being the cost of connecting electricity to Osiri Beach area. This is NOT a lot of money, given that the company at first demanded Ksh 1.2 million, next lowered the cost to 0.57 million (Ksh 570000), and now finally, after negotiations, sweet talking and cajoling, to tens of thousands. What I’m saying is that now I do not need to be a millionaire to experience power and light, but I still have to be damn rich. The people of Osiri are neither of the above, and maybe the lonely night bulbs donated by our kind friends from abroad will shine like lone stars in a vast dark night. We’ll still be in darkness, ironically, as a power and lighting company still exists in our life. Why are we still allowing dinosaurs, like Kenya Power Co., to control our lives? This company has neatly put us with respect to power where the old Kenya Postal Corporation put us with respect to communication in the last century. In those ‘golden’ Postal days, you would wait for up to twenty years for the corporation to install a telephone line in your home, and only if you were politically correct. In THESE ‘golden’ days of Kenya Power, you can wait forever to have electricity in your home. Kenya Power is corrupt, inept and lazy, physically and mentally. Yet it goes on and on. The reasons for this shame of a state corporation: it is a MONOPOLY. It is a milk cow for the ‘big’ who profit from the incompetence. What’s more, it is a control agent for the government that doesn’t want to see development in some parts of the republic. Just a few anecdotes: Kogello had to have one of their relatives as president of the US for them to be provided with electricity. What if you don’t have a tall relative—better still an international one—to make them feel ashamed? I have had to make endless trips to Kenya Power offices to beg for a service which I’d pay for. At times, when I complained, I was arrogantly told that I had not visited them enough. Imagine a busy man wasting energy and man-hours visiting dinosaur offices—what for? And then I was asked for 1.2 million Kenya shillings to have power connected to a simple community library. Why? My friends and I were already doing what the state itself had failed to do—providing education to needy citizens, and now, and still now, the state was asking an impoverished community to be millionaires first before being provided with an essential service. NKT! Recently, some creative Kenyan girls produced electricity from their urine. Frustrated by the promise of power in this twenty-first century Kenya, these students will literally urinate this company out of existence. Go for it, girls! We are never going to reach Vision 2030, mark my words, with this power company. The solution is KILL! KILL! KILL this MONOPOLY. If the progressive people in the republic can’t do it, I challenge our energy engineers to do it, to rid us of this anachronism. Finally, if you asked me which corporation best reflects the Kenyan state, I’d straight away tell you it is the Kenya Power and Lighting Company. It is a monopoly, just like the Kenyan state—in the hands of a few inept members who, drugged by tribalism and other primitive instincts, fail to see where they are looking, except that they have power in their hands. I have travelled in this country, even overflew it, day and night, and seen a lot of darkness. Villages and towns in this country differ very little from the wilderness. They are waiting for power. The state has denied them power. But like the girls with their urine, they shall soon create their own power.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 04:39:57 +0000
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