The government has announced plans to review the current power tariffs that will see the cost of electricity reduce in the next two months.

According to Energy Principal Secretary Joseph Njoroge, Kenya Power Managing Director Ken Tarus and ERC director general Pavel Robert Oimeke the new harmonised tariff will be ready by July.

The three were speaking before the Senate Energy committee where they had been summoned to explain the reasons behind the inflated electricity bills consumers have been slapped with.

“I can confirm to Kenyans that the cost of electricity will go down and therefore it is not just the usual talk.” said Kenya Power Managing Director Ken Tarus

Energy Principal Secretary Joseph Njoroge said the inflated power bills were occasioned by key among other factors, the prolonged drought witnessed between January and March.

The move to scale down on the cost of electricity in the country comes in the wake of a massive public outcry over high power bills. Kenya Power had in January announced that consumers would face Sh8.1 billion backdated bills to recover costs incurred on diesel generators last year.

CITY LAWYER MOVES TO COURT OVER INFLATED ELECTRICITY BILLS

Lawyer Apollo Mboya moved to court following Kenya Power’s announcement to have the company and the Energy Regulatory Commission barred from billing consumers the inflated backdated bills in an attempt to recover Ksh 10.1 billion contained in their Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ending June 30, 2017.

HIGH COST OF ELECTRICITY HAMPERS BUSINESS

The high cost of electricity in Kenya has been listed by various reports as a key obstacle to the ease of doing business in the country.

Other than Nairobi being listed as Africa’s most expensive city to live in according to a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in August this year, another recent report by the World Bank’s Doing Business 2014 report showed that Kenya’s position in the list of ‘ease of doing business’ had dropped to position 129 from 122 last year.

Kenya ranked poorly in the ease of obtaining electricity connection and cost of electricity areas that contribute in making the country less favourable for investment in the continent.