Kenya Power offices on Aga Khan Walk in Nairobi.
Kenya Power employees colluded with security guards and fuel tanker drivers to steal 1,183,583 litres of diesel worth Sh207.65 million meant to power its off-grid stations in Turkana county.
According to a report by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu on the company's financials for the year ending June 2024, the theft occurred over a 26-month period between October 2021 and December 2023.
Kenya Power runs 15 major off-grid stations across the country to serve far-flung locations that are not connected to the national power grid.
These stations have a total installed capacity of 27.867 megawatts (MW).
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“An internal investigation into alleged theft of generation fuel at off-grid stations in Turkana county conducted during the year under review revealed that between October 2021 and December 2023, a total of 1,183,583 liters of diesel valued at Sh207,653,022 could not be accounted for,” said the Auditor-General in Kenya Power's latest annual report.
“Several employees, security guards and fuel tanker drivers were found culpable,” Ms Gathungu added.
The Auditor-General revealed that while an investigation report recommended that investigations be expanded to other counties with off-grid stations given that the same truck drivers were supplying the other regions with diesel, this had not been done by the utility.
Ms Gathungu further revealed that Kenya Power had sent a demand letter to the fuel supplier.
When asked about the theft by the Business Daily, Kenya Power Managing Director Dr Joseph Siror said that he is “not aware of any employee theft of that magnitude”.
He, however, said the company is looking into possible short deliveries by its fuel supplier.
“I am however aware of (an) investigation that is still ongoing on possible short deliveries by the fuel supplier. The matter is still active,” said Dr Siror.
What will worry Kenyans is that such theft schemes affect them directly through higher power prices. The cost of running the off-grid stations is a pass-through cost included in the Fuel Energy Charge.
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This charge is reviewed every month by the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) every month and is the second largest fuel cost component only behind the consumption charge.
The Fuel Energy Charge also includes the cost of running grid-tied thermal power plants.
This is however not the first incident where Kenya Power employees have been indicted in theft schemes at the company. The company had a work force of 10,535 at June 2024.
Some of its workers were also found to have irregularly issued meters worth Sh17.47 million in the Central Rift Valley region in the financial year 2022/23.
“However, management did not provide evidence of measures put in place to prevent similar occurrences as well as ascertaining prevalence of the scheme in other regions,” said Ms Gathungu.
