Rains splash pain and tears on slum residents

As Nairobi residents continue to reel from the effects of the devastating flash floods that hit the city recently, Mary Makove from Mabatini slum in Embakasi mourns.

Makove, 28, lost her four-year-old daughter to an electric shock triggered by exposed illegal cables at the family's doorstep.

"She went out to play and stepped into the pool of water in front of the house and that was how she was struck," says a sobbing Makove when we meet her at her shanty in Mabatini.

She is surrounded by a few family members who have come to condole with her and assist in the preparations for the child's burial at Langa'ta Cemetery in Nairobi.

The floods, occasioned by three days of heavy downpour, left tens dead and thousands homeless across the city's sprawling slums.

As always, the residents stood no chance against the raging floods in their shacks; even though the floods also dealt a telling blow to much of the city's infrastructure.

Death came knocking in the middle of the night as the deluge struck unannounced steamrolling through the sorry neighbourhoods, sweeping away homes, livelihoods and lives.

For thousands of slum residents, however, death lurked all over.

Makove says she was preparing to go to the market in the morning when she heard her daughter cry out.

She rushed outside and found her sprawled in a pool of water. One look at her daughter was enough to know what had happened. In the neighbourhood, they had seen many people succumb to electric shock. But there was that slim hope that maybe her daughter would make it. They rushed the little one to hospital but she did not.

So traumatised was Makove that she planned to travel to her rural home in Kakamega just to try and forget the sound of her daughter's cry that keeps replaying in her mind.

"Our lives are so hard already and then this happens," she says, fighting back tears.

Makove's tragedy mirrors what most slum dwellers in Nairobi go through every rainy season.

The slum is woven in a web of illegal electric cables as cartels continue to infiltrate Kenya Power's electricity distribution networks with impunity.

But these illegal wires are a death trap for the residents.

Some of the wires hang loosely overhead, others are dug shallowly into the earth; and even more dangerously, others are strapped against the mabati walls.

A slight brush against the wires and an electric bolt of 240 volts — enough power to kill an elephant —could be sent rushing through your body.

In the five slums we visited, residents say electrocution accounts for between 30-40 deaths per year. Wednesday Life could not independently verify these figures.

According to Nairobi Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System 2012, tuberculosis, injuries, and HIV and Aids accounted for 26.9, 20.9 and 17.3 per cent of all deaths respectively in poor, urban settlements.

Sammy Mundati Wango, a resident of Soweto slum in Kayole where illegal electricity known locally as 'stima sambaza' (sub-leased power) is the order of the day, says deaths from electrocution are commonplace. It explains why death from injuries is that high.

"In our area, five people have been reported dead due to electric shock since the rains started," he says.

Most victims, he says, stepped on exposed electric cables, touched exposed wires strapped to walls or came into contact with  low-hanging power lines.

"The most lethal are the exposed underground cables. Come the rains and the danger of electric shock is heightened because electricity will be flowing, literally," he says.

Peter Were an electrical engineer working with a construction company in Nairobi explains that when a live electric wire comes into contact with water, the water becomes positively charged. He explains that rain water is a good conductor of electricity since it contains dissolved minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron and sodium.

"This water can carry the electric charge for miles and even though it comes into contact with exposed electric cables in one place it can continue to kill several miles down the road," he says.

The problem with the illegal connections is that they are poorly done. "Often they only tap the live wire, which means that the earth-wire and neutral wire then expose residents to electric shock," he says.

Rose Wairimu from Kiambiu slum off Buru Buru estate says most victims of electrically-charged water are children and drunkards.

"Children, because they are innocently unaware, but drunkards because they throw all caution to the wind," she says.

In her slum, there are unwritten rules on how to avoid being struck by electricity especially during the rains.

"You do not for instance, go touching mabati walls with your bare hands. We always wear gumboots when going out on wet days. Sadly, visitors get licked all the time because they don't follow our rules," she says.

But how did this proliferation of electricity happen in the first place?

Wanga explains that the phenomenon is encouraged by the strict Kenya Power requirements for being connected to electricity, corruption among its own employees and runaway extortionist cartels in Nairobi slums.

"Kenya Power requires a plot number including the title deed before they can connect you. Most of the plots in the slums don't have these, so people look for short cuts," he explains.

"Cartels run by proscribed groups like Mungiki have capitalised on this gap to create a parallel electricity supply chain," he says.

However, they are helped by former or current corrupt employees of Kenya Power to achieve their aim.

"The power source is a transformer. Who would climb an electric pole to tap power?" he poses. Obviously a trained person.

 "Consider this: Early this year they brought down a whole transformer in Kayole plunging the estate into darkness for two weeks. Who would do that if not experts?"

According to William Musumba a beneficiary of illegal power from Mukuru kwa Njenga, the so-called raids to dismantle the illegal lines by Kenya Power and the police are often sideshows.

"It takes a whole battalion of police officers and Kenya Power employees to mount the raid but it takes just a few hours for the electricity to be re-connected," he says.

But why are the residents complicit in a scheme that threatens their very lives?

"It is because the illegal power comes cheap and the residents are afraid to expose the cartels for fear of being singled out and eliminated.

"For the price of between Sh200-500 I get electricity for a whole month," says Vitalis Ochieng Opany, a resident of Quarry slum in Embakasi.

"There is also the hassle of having to pay your bills on time and nobody will come to disconnect your power," he adds.

But is this power really cheap, considering that most middle-class households pay close to if not the same amount for power every month?

According to Wanga who is familiar with the operations of the cartel, this rate was set a long time ago when Kenyans were still grappling with the high cost of electricity.

"The good thing about it is that the cartels don't ascribe to market forces. Those rates could apply even 20 years from now," he says.

And consumers would not dare mess with the cartels as they know the consequences are not a laughing matter.

But even as the cartels continue to mint millions illegally and residents continue to play along, thousands of lives, including those of innocent continues to be lost.