County governments owe Kenya Power Sh5.67 billion in unpaid electricity bills amid unsuccessful efforts by the utility to recover part of the debt and shore up its bottom line.
Disclosures by the firm shows that the amount was outstanding as at June 30 this year, making up nearly 15 percent of the total unpaid bill of Sh39.03 billion.
The debt has been growing over the years, prompting the Auditor-General to flag counties for the defaults which continue to hurt the State-owned electricity distributor’s efforts of driving its revenues.
Kenya Power has faced stiff opposition from counties in efforts to collect the money with some like Nairobi County retaliating by demanding billions of shillings for wayleave.
“The receivables balance includes an amount of Sh5,679,805,786 due from county governments in respect of unpaid electricity bills from the 47 county governments which continue to accumulate. Management efforts to recover the amounts have not yielded favourable results,” Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu says in review of Kenya Power’s performance for the year ended June 2025.
Kenya Power’s electricity revenues fell five percent to Sh219.28 billion while net profit tumbled by 18.7 percent to Sh24.47 billion in the year under review.
Kenya Power attributed the drops to a combination of the fall in revenues and reduced forex recoveries in a year when the shilling remained largely unchanged against the dollar.
Unpaid bills remain one of Kenya Power’s biggest headaches with counties disputing the amounts and others using un-orthodox means to ward off efforts to collect the debt.
For example, Nairobi County has on several occasions dumped sewage at Kenya Power offices and clamped its vehicles in a bid to force the utility firm to reconnect electricity despite accumulation of bills.
The ugly tussles have forced Kenya Power to reconnect electricity supply to the county government.
A scrutiny of the debt owed by 10 counties revealed a disparity of Sh2.37 billion with Kenya Power’s records showing an unpaid bill of Sh3.94 billion while the devolved units put the figure at Sh1.57 billion.
Kenya Power has severally enlisted the services of debt collection firms in a bid to recover unpaid bills. The firm disclosed that it transferred Sh5.69 billion worth of unpaid electricity bills to debt collectors in the year ended June 2025.
Mounting struggles to recover the unpaid electricity bills forced Kenya Power to write off a total of Sh19.28 billion as at June 2024.
The company further wrote to the National Treasury in the year ended June 2025, seeking permission to write off a further Sh4.19 billion in unpaid power bills accrued by deceased sole proprietors and untraceable and dissolved companies.
