The Council of Governors now says counties are willing to pay the Sh4.7 billion electricity bills that Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) is demanding from them, even as they also seek to be paid billions of shillings owed to the counties by KPLC.

Marsabit Governor Mahmoud Ali, who is the COG Energy Committee Chairperson, said that the counties are also demanding that KPLC pay wayleave charges even as they demand the clearance of electricity bills, stating that in most cases, these are even more than the bills being claimed.

Ali said Nairobi County is owed Sh802 million, Kirinyaga County Sh192 million, and Machakos County Sh41 million in wayleave charges, which KPLC should clear since it was subletting its infrastructure to other entities and was being paid for that.

“Most counties are disputing the electricity bills that Kenya Power and Lighting Company is claiming. A good example is Machakos County, in which KPLC was claiming Sh141 million; after the forensic audit was done, the figure was reduced to Sh56 million. The same case is with other counties,” said Ali.

The Committee Chairperson, Oburu Odinga, insisted that they were only going to listen to KPLC Chairperson Joseph Siror after he failed to turn up and instead sent the General Manager in charge of Commercial Affairs, Rosemary Oduor, to represent him during the meeting.

Oburu said that they were not doubting Oduor’s capability to represent KPLC, but Parliamentary Standing Orders demand the appearance of heads of institutions before them as an act of responsibility to avoid a scenario where commitments made by juniors are later disowned.

The Siaya Senator said that it was important that the KPLC CEO took Parliamentary work seriously, since the letter he had sent informing the committee that he would be away and represented by Oduor simply stated he would be attending to other engagements outside Nairobi, which he did not specify.

“The KPLC CEO has not stated the nature of the work he is doing outside the city that supersedes his appearance in Parliament. That is why we cannot engage any other person from the organisation, since we want total commitment to the decisions that we will come up with,” said Oburu.

The disputes between counties and the Kenya Power and Lighting Company came to the fore early this year following the dumping of waste outside the electricity supplier’s headquarters by Nairobi County tippers over a power bill, which led to disconnection.

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja said KPLC owes Nairobi County Sh4.9 billion in wayleave charges, while the county owes KPLC Sh1.5 billion, and that the power supplier had moved to court over the matter, which was dismissed, meaning the status quo was maintained.

He said after meeting KPLC management, it was agreed they would be paying Sh60 million, and he personally visited Stima Plaza last December and told the CEO they could not switch off electricity yet owe the county billions, with the bulk of the payment going to street lights, which cannot be switched off due to security reasons.

“I approached KPLC when I came to power, where I asked for verification of the electricity debt, which we carried out jointly. They were claiming Sh3 billion, after which it went down to Sh1.5 billion, as some metres we were paying for did not belong to the county,” said Sakaja.

The Governor said they met with the KPLC management and agreed on a payment plan, after which he established that during the Nairobi Metropolitan Service tenure, Sh700 million was paid to KPLC, reducing the debt down to Sh800 million.

Sakaja said they had sent the demand notice for Sh4.9 billion in wayleave charges dating back to 2002 but had not received any response. He pointed to similar cases in Mombasa, Migori, Homa Bay, Kilifi, and Kisumu, where KPLC switches off lights, and they had suggested writing off each other’s debts, with the power supplier not responding.