Why city lighting bid could be a pipe dream

From left: Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir, his Principal Secretary Eng Joseph Njoroge (centre) and Kenya Power MD Ben Chumo. The Nairobi County government single sourced Kenya Power to implement a Sh10 billion street lighting project, contraryu to procurement laws. PHOTO | FILE |

What you need to know:

  • Those in the know have questioned the decision to single-source Kenya Power
  • Early this month, Kenya Power announced that it had already received Sh381.2 million from The National Treasury to commence the exercise.

A multi-billion-shilling street lighting project could be on the rocks after fresh details emerged showing the tendering process was flawed.

The Sunday Nation has learnt that the Nairobi County Government single-sourced Kenya Power to implement the Sh10 billion project, contrary to public procurement rules.

The move exposes the entire process to criticism and possible delay if challenged by other interested parties.

Sources within the Nairobi City Government revealed that the process was a diversion from the original plan, raising more questions about the manner in which the implementation of the project is being carried out.

“In the first meeting, it was agreed that the county government would implement the project while Kenya Power would connect the lights. The county government was therefore responsible for preparation of the bids, but it seems this is no longer the case.

We do not know at what point this plan changed,” said a source within the government who could not be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The meeting was held in late June and was attended by representatives of the ministry of Energy and Petroleum, Kenya Power and the county government, among others.

Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir has defended the selection of Kenya Power to implement the project on the basis that the utility has the necessary capacity to “effectively” execute such projects.

“We have a joint team Kenya Power and the Nairobi County Government. Kenya Power is the implementing agent because it manages power on behalf of government, but it has to source for materials competitively,” he told Sunday Nation.

On October 21, Kenya Power invited tenders for the supply of materials for the street lighting project. While one of the devolved roles of county governments is to undertake such projects, the core business of Kenya Power is the distribution of electricity and building of low-voltage power lines.

Kenya Power managing director Ben Chumo said the firm will only construct the street lighting infrastructure on behalf of the city county government and will therefore not own the street lights.

“The lights belong to the city government. We are just an implementing agency and because we have the infrastructure, we are able to speed up the process so that we can also get a market for electricity,” said Mr Chumo in a telephone interview.

Sources privy to the project say that the original plan for the implementation of the street lighting programme indicated that firms to construct the infrastructure would be competitively sourced by the Nairobi City County.

This situation mirrors other past incidents where large public projects have stalled due to instances where suppliers have been single sourced contrary to public procurement rules.

The project will be financed by the central government up to 40 per cent of the total budget while the rest is expected to come from the city government.

Early this month, Kenya Power announced that it had already received Sh381.2 million from The National Treasury to commence the exercise.

It is understood that Nairobi County has about 24,000 street lights and 7,300 public lighting masts which cover about 30 per cent of the city. However, about 40 per cent of these lights are not operational and are in need of repair or replacement.

In a statement, Kenya Power indicated it intends to spend about Sh953 million of the total budget for the street lighting project on refurbishing existing street lights.

In addition, the utility firm also projected that installation of new infrastructure to cover the remaining 70 per cent of the county, which consists of 12,959 public lighting masts and 54,029 street lighting points, would cost about Sh9.8 billion.

The rationale of the street lighting project is to transform the city into a 24 hour economy by providing adequate lighting to industrial and residential areas, commercial centres, roads, railways and public transport areas.

The project also allows Kenya Power to obtain a market for electricity as more power flows into the grid, with the completion of some of the projects lined up under the government’s plan to increase power generation by 5,000 megawatts by 2017.

“A large proportion of this power demand is during off peak periods times of the day when residential homes and businesses generally use less electricity. With the injection of cheap geothermal base load to the grid, time of use tariff will benefit public lighting and encourage industrial activity at night,” reads a brief by Kenya Power on the project.