Jubilee Dev - Contracts to link 650,000 more homes to Electricity Signed

[SIZE=6]Contracts to link 650,000 homes to electricity signed[/SIZE]
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2017 20:28
BY NEVILLE OTUKI
http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/image/view/-/4180498/medRes/1805463/-/maxw/960/-/bov0n8z/-/contract.jpg
Nearly 650,000 households will be connected to electricity after Kenya Power awarded contracts to construct new power lines and transformers into villages at a cost of Sh30 billion. Kenya Power on Thursday launched the second phase of the government’s mass connectivity project introduced in 2015 where homes are connected at a subsidised fee of Sh15,000, about half the previous cost. The phase will take 18 months and connect 626,700 homes in a project jointly funded by loans from the World Bank and African Development Bank.

Some 15 contractors have been picked, seven of them Kenyan, to lay the infrastructure and each will provide a performance bond equivalent to 10 per cent of the value of their contracts.

“This project puts us on a firm path towards attaining universal power access by 2020,” said Kenya Power managing director Ken Tarus.

The drive, dubbed last mile connectivity project, involves installing transformers and low-voltage lines to reach homes in remote villages. The venture has opened up job opportunities and a business bonanza for suppliers. The project launched yesterday will use 233,000 concrete and 397,000 wooden poles, 10,000 kilometres of cables, and 1,000 transformers. Kenya Power launched the first phase of the project in the second quarter of 2015 with 280,000 homes so far hooked to power out of the targeted 314,200. Its customer base has grown from one million in 2010 to 6.3 million, with the power connectivity access rate rising to 70 per cent, according to Dr Tarus.

But Kenya Power’s sales have not grown with a similar margin because the connections are driven by low electricity consumers. Under the project, Kenya Power approaches potential customers and offers to hook them to the grid in clusters, unlike in the past when home owners had to apply for connection

233k concrete poles ! Hapo WSR junior anenukisha kitunguu mbaya. Most of the poles have already been delivered by the way .

tusiwe adui wa maendeleo…@spear i dont know and i dont care if you are in the government payroll but the fact that you post the developments going on in our country where the media has blacked it out is awesome…it gives me that energy to pay what i owe to the government irregardless of the political situation…napenda sana

the first phase of last mile failed miserably, how can you give 15 contractors kazi ilikuwa inafanywa na 1000 contractors and expect them 2 perform.

watu wa Busia tumeumia sana. we want new transformers

At last my home in gichagi which uses unreliable solar power, will get connected. Uhuru tano tena.

Altho at times kupatia watu wengi sana kazi hufanya, project management and supervision ikuwe blunder,

Actually Africa Development Bank set that condition that the contractors fulfill a set of conditions to qualify for that tender.

I remember that Dec 2015 when Mzee called to say the Kenya Power people showed up at the gate with poles and wires connecting power to every homes. They were asking for every house to go to their office with PIN no’s and 15K to get a pre-paid meter. Mzee alikuwa anataka nimtolee copy pin yake KRA kumbe he didn’t know it can be done online. As we spoke the wires had been setup to the house awaiting the final connection and meter. A week later our solar panels become back up power.

I am in this field and i can tell you this is just a money making scheme. these 15 guys failed miserably in the first phase ilibidi wamenyanganwa hizo kazi 6 months to the election, tukapayiwa hizo job tukachapa. what these 15 guys do is just to sub contract to us at a third of what they are paid

OK, first hand information there.

I have already done wiring Cucu’s house, coicidently I applied today, waiting for 14 days for power people to have visited the site so as to be told the number of poles needed in which in my case we had seen two, and thereafter to be told the amount to pay

I like your input sir, I salute

this is a field where gok made a big mess they could have given these contracts to us because tutafanya pesa icirculate, or wafanye kama rural electrification they run 2 parallel systems

This program is transforming the nation.Ocha all along we have been the only ones on our side of the ridge with lights at night.Dec na juzi nikiwa ocha the opposite ridge and the ridges in the far distance were bright with security lights.I tell you I see myself retiring early to go manage my tea farms.

economies of scale in terms of cost per households

the cost is the same

I have never seen ONE project that critics have ever lauded. They ALWAYS have better ways to do things.

Actually he is right. I value his opinion on matters power and electric. We have been discussing them for the better part of 2017.

Valuable discussions involves pros and cons. Any talk that involves what is wrong or what has been done wrong exclusively is not a discussion but a one sided critique. And what you see here mostly is how stupid and corrupt the government is. I might agree that they’re dumb but nobody can be that stupid.

PS: even JaKuon has flashes of brilliance :slight_smile: