Running powerless and Paying for it

Running powerless and Paying for it

I am now used to staying without electric power.  The power fails every other day, albeit for short duration.  However, the power failure has progressively become more prolonged since the national power provider, KPLC, decided to get themselves into a scandal that was compounded with that nearly national power blackout of mid-January.

It is for this reason that I was not surprised at all when there was no power in my house last Thursday evening.  However, this was the ‘discriminative’ type, where some houses in the two-storey apartment have power, while others do not.  It is technically called a phase failure, where one or two of the three power cables becomes faulty.  This means only the houses connected to the faulty line fail to get power while the rest enjoy the goodness of electricity.

The phase failure has been a common occurrence in that plot.  I am not sure if it is only my pad that gets hit, but I can confirm that I tend to feel so, though I have no data to back my feeling.  I only see the times when I am in the dark while the rest of the houses are lit.  Maybe others are equally affected, but I do not know.

I was therefore quite OK with the power fail in my house despite the others houses having power.  I went to bed in the dark and surprisingly woke up in the dark the next morning, Friday.  That was strange.  I am used to such a phase failure being resolved by the next morning.  This one had not been resolved almost twelve hours later.  I left for duty dejected with lots of curses to the power provider, albeit with some hope that the evening would bring in some good tidings.

I was a bit surprised when I came back home around nine in the evening Friday to still find the house dark.  This prolonged power fail was surely setting a wrong record for the power provider.  I was just glad that I did not have a refrigeration equipment, otherwise I would be in a worse situation.  I was however not very surprised, yes, not very surprised.  The power company was capable of anything!  What else can you say of a company that allows a row of high voltage power pylons to collapse to the ground causing that national blackout?  And to blame scrap metal vandals for that national disaster is surely stretching it!

Anyway, I went to bed for a second night with lots of bad feelings for the power company.  I was however convinced that they surely would resolve the phase failure by morning.  Believe it or not, I woke up on Saturday with no power for a third day running!  Something had to give.

I called the caretaker to just confirm that many of us were suffering the power fail.  She usually gets to know of such, and on some occasions, I have heard her over my earshot talking about the failure and stating to whoever that she had called Kenya Power about it.

The caretaker was surprised that I did not have power, since there was no power problem at all in the last week.  Her first question was, “Umelipa kweli?”

I had not even imagined that I could be asked that question.  I had not even thought that the power fail could be a power cut.  I had not even thought of thinking along these lines.  I did not even want to take that line of thinking on this Saturday morning.

Of course I had paid, in advance.  I pay the bill on the date of issuance of the bill, two weeks before the due date.  I even I have a budget tracker that ensures that the power bill item remains glowing on the list until it is paid and ticked off.

“Kuna watu wa pawa walikuja kukata stima juzi, lazima walikata yako.  Kweli ulilipa?,” she reconfirmed.

I started to even doubt whether I had really paid up that bill.  Did the Njanuary month of 60-days get into me to the extent of not remembering to pay?  Did my budget tracker do a number on me?  Was it the December bill that I actually did pay and not this one?  I asked myself quite some questions, even as I spoke on phone.

I soon sent a query to the 977 short message code so that Kenya Power can check the bill against my meter.  And as sure as the earth is flat, I soon got a response that I had all outstanding bills and my account was reading -0.00.

“Phew!,” I exhaled even as I got my sanity back.  I would soon send the same confirmation to the caretaker, since she was in total disbelief herself, that I had paid yet my power had been disconnected.  In fact after getting that message we talked once more on phone and she even used the word “mlevi” while describing whoever was involved.

At that point I had the option of waiting until Monday to sort it out with the power company that made the mistake, hence add another 2 dark days to my bill, or go plan B.  That is when the caretaker told me that she knows someone who knows someone that knows another person who is authorized to reconnect erroneously disconnected meters, “lakini yeye hurudisha stima na thao,” she concluded casually.

“For crying out loud!,” I almost cried out loud!

My last bill was only four hundred shillings and I usually pay about five hundred shillings monthly for that power.  Now I have to pay up double that amount for reconnection caused by a mistake that is not mine!

Long story short, I got my power back the same evening, while my MPESA balance was seriously depleted.  Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and just pay to Caesar what is his.  Maybe there is even a cartel to disconnect incorrect meters so that we pay up this reconnection fee ‘on the side’.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Feb. 8, 2022