95,000 power meters arrive amid quality concerns
A Chinese firm that supplied some 55,000 meters that failed to meet quality checks has delivered 95,000 new meters valued at more than Sh475 million that are being cleared at the Port of Mombasa.
Kenya Power last year awarded Chinese firm Hexing Electricals Ltd of Hangzhou a contract to supply some 250,000 single-phase meters to address a biting shortage of the critical gadgets.
Hexing has delivered the first batch of 60,000 meters at a cost of Sh300 million while the remaining batch of nearly 100,000 meters is scheduled to be shipped in by the firm later in the year.
“The 95,000 meters are being cleared at the port as we speak,” Kenya Power officials said on Tuesday.
The total value of the contract is estimated at more than Sh1.25 billion.
But Kenya Power’s deal with Hexing has come under scrutiny after the first batch of the meters delivered by the Chinese firm failed quality tests in the laboratory but were still accepted by the utility.
Curiously, the utility waived Factory Acceptance Tests that ought to verify that the gadgets meet the necessary quality standards in a bid to fasten the procurement process even as it argued that it needed the meters urgently to address the shortage.
“Manufacture meters and invite a technical team from KPLC to conduct factory acceptance tests. However, due to an acute shortage of meters, we are waiving the requirement for factory acceptance tests to shorten delivery times,” Kenya Power told Hexing in a letter.
The utility’s three-member ad-hoc acceptance committee was tasked with verifying the quality standards of the meters and identified that the meters’ customer interface unit (CUI) that displays information such as the customer’s power usage and meter readings and the measuring control unit were not functioning properly.
The committee rejected the meters, but the utility formed another committee that accepted the meters after conducting field tests which it says showed that the gadgets were performing well at customer premises.
“We have already connected 50,000 of the new meters to customers and they are functioning normally. We have not received any complaints from customers,” argued Kenya Power.
Previous contracts
The utility says its decision to allow the meters was also informed by its previous contracts with Hexing.
“This supplier has delivered to us more than one million meters over the years which were of good quality and performed well,” said the company.
Even as questions swirl over the quality of meters from the Chinese firm, Kenya Power is seeking to buy an additional 736,697 meters. The deadline for manufacturers to make submission of their bids is April 12.
The utility has, however, restricted the latest tender to local manufacturers.
The shortage of meters has derailed thousands of customers getting connected to the power supply as well as those seeking to replace faulty meters.
This comes at a time the company has accelerated its electrification programme across the country, and in December for the first time crossed the nine million customer mark, leading to a huge demand for meters.
The shortage recently forced the utility to go after landlords and homeowners to repossess their idle meters that had not been used for six months so that the meters could be sold to other customers. BY DAILY NATION
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