Sambaza giving Kenya Power a run for its money

By FERDINAND MWONGELA

For a while now, the Kenya Power chaps seem to be having a problem keeping my neck of the woods consistently lit. No one really seems to have a proper handle of issues, but the local wag claims it has to do with some rival power distributors.

Of course, only people in the upmarket areas actually think Kenya Power is a monopoly. No Sir.

The number of informal distributors would make the list of companies at the registrar’s office look like some anaemic menu in some backstreet food kiosk, proudly christened ‘beach hotel’.

Where the rest of us live, these alternative distributors, we call them the sambaza people, rule the roost. And their clients enjoy better services compared to the residents stupid enough to have wasted their time jumping through hoops to get official power connection. Their customer service is fast and efficient, while Kenya Power clients have to whine on Twitter and Facebook for hours, or days.

Slums, where most rival distributors operate, rarely have power problems apart from the occasional electrocution of a cow or a drunk who insists on urinating under a wall clearly indicated “Usikojoe hapa”.

The other day, electricity in the hood decided to take short naps, flicking on and off, before taking a walk altogether.

Those who claim to know what the problem was claimed the sambaza people had overwhelmed something or other at the local transformer. Despite reassurances that power was headed our way, nothing was forthcoming more that 12 hours later.

Then there was light. A quick tour around the hood and the word was the sambaza distributors had, somehow, switched the rest of us back on, so their customers in a nearby slum did not have to stay in the dark for another night.

A quick walk, and quite a bit of sitting, in a couple of neighbourhood pubs soon confirms that these alternative distributors are the service kings.

While the rest of us sit around waiting for something to be done, they are out there salvaging their business — by ‘acquiring’ fuses or (or whatever blew in the local transformer) from transformers in other neighbourhoods and switching their customers back on, and letting the guys in those other hoods stew and curse Kenya Power.

More efficient

Quite a few times the chaps at Electricity House and Stima Plaza do some not too shabby work, but in the pursuit of more efficient services, I think I will slot the local sambaza guys on my electricity supply list for when I put up my own shack. And needless to say, people in my hood rarely urinate against walls, and this has nothing to do with kanjos.