Author: Allan Ngugi
Date: February 13, 2007
Type of article: Commentary
Source: The Daily Nation - only available online by registration and paid subscription fee

---

A few weeks ago, a huge part of Kasarani in Nairobi was without electricity. Because power was being cut off during working hours — between 9am and 5pm — small and medium businesses lost tremendous amounts of money.

All this was happening at a time when the World Social Forum, which rails against Western hegemonic economic interests, was going on at the nearby Kasarani Sports Complex.

The reason for this particular cut-off, though certainly hardly unique in most parts of Nairobi and the country, was that the power utility was erecting poles to provide electricity service to others.

FEW PEOPLE CAN BE AMUSED BY this sort of twisted logic. 

Why would electricity be denied some so that others can be provided with the same? 

Indeed, it is because such ridiculous arguments have always been posted by State monopolies, and we never protest, that such things will always happen. They do not seem to take into account the deep losses incurred.

Random investigations in this rapidly growing part of the city show there are now numerous cybercafes and computer/photocopying bureaus, which, on close check, seem to be beating those downtown hands down, as estate residents find them more convenient.

They are not alone; the area hosts hundreds of beauty salons, posho mills, butcheries, bars, barber shops, and electronics stores. 

Most of these need electric power, and they grind to a halt for weeks on end. One can imagine their losses amount to millions of shillings.

When such a loss is replicated in other parts of Nairobi alone, the figures run into billions of shillings.

How are such small entities supposed to make up the losses since, unlike the big firms, they cannot afford back-up generators?

It may be argued that with the power utility, all this is old hat. Its motto seems to be to cut off power as often as possible. Of course, there are other state monoliths that work against their own interests. 

Telkom Kenya (and its predecessor, the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation, for instance, only managed to make a mere 350,000 telephone subscriber connections countrywide in the past couple of decades. And most of them in Nairobi.

How did Safaricom, which it partially owns, manage to connect more than four million cell-phone subscribers in a mere five years? However, electricity is not even like telephone services as important as these are. It is the engine of all economic activity without which industries, businesses, and offices can grind to a halt.

However, the gist of this problem is not all technical. It is quite possible to extend power provision without creating darkness for everyone else. This kind of thing does not happen in more industrialised, more populated countries.
As it is, installing power services where there is none but where power lines exist is not the most taxing engineering feat. Expanding major road arteries can be more technically challenging.

THESE SHORTCOMINGS, AND others like our inefficient port where it takes ages to process freight, don’t augur well for a nation seeking to become an newly-industrialised country in 20 years. 

What should start happening is that those affected should file all manner of legal suits against such utility monoliths. This should jolt them awake in a hurry.

Actually, this might not be a bad idea after all, as people start counting their losses seriously.

Mr Ngugi writes on business