- Due to forex payments, consumers spending 30 to 100 units per month on Kenya electricity bills will now pay Sh29 per power unit from the end of February.
- The local currency traded 160.50 units against the dollar on Wednesday, the highest gain in a fortnight.
Following Kenya‘s significant foreign currency exchange payments in January, the cost of power in the country will drop by Sh3.44 on eased forex pressure. According to sources, the actual forex adjustment on power bills will drop by half to Sh3.21/kWh compared to Sh6.45/kWh reported in January. As a result of these changes, people at the bottom of the economic pyramid spending 0-30 kilowatts of power per month will now pay Sh23.60 per kilowatt from Sh27 in January. Though the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) has not announced the changes yet, the rate is higher than the Sh22.45 charged per unit in December.
This means that for Sh300, low-power consumers will get 13 units of electricity instead of 10 in January. According to the data, consumers spending 30 to 100 units per month will now pay Sh29 per unit of power from the end of February compared to Sh31.97 paid in January and Sh31.97 per unit in December. Consequently, for Sh1,000, the user gets 34.4 units of power from 31 units, while big consumers spending an average of Sh36.81 per unit of power will pay ShSh33.37 per unit.
In the past year, the Kenyan shilling has depreciated against major international currencies, dropping by 23 per cent against the US dollar. The local currency traded 160.50 units against the dollar on Wednesday, the highest gain in a fortnight. Last year, the utility firm reported a net loss of Sh3.2 billion, a reversal of the Sh3.3 billion profit reported in the previous financial year, citing higher finance costs caused by the depreciating shilling as the reason for the loss.