Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) on Wednesday, August 4 announced the resignation of Managing Director Bernard Ngugi after nearly two years at the helm.
The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE)-listed power distributor further confirmed the appointment of Eng. Rosemary Oduor as the acting Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. She was previously the General Manager for Commercial Services and Sales.
Kenya Power’s Board of Directors appointed Bernard Ngugi as MD and CEO in October 2019, after key management figures were embroiled in corruption scandals.
Details of what led to Ngugi’s resignation from the state-owned company remain scanty.
Oduor is the holder of a Bachelor of Technology Degree in Electrical and Communications Engineering from Moi University and Master of Business Administration from the University of Nairobi.
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She is a registered Professional Engineer with the Engineers Board of Kenya who began working at KPLC in 1991, and has since served in a number of engineering and management roles.
Her in-tray as MD of Kenya Power will be full to the brim, as the loss-making company continues to grapple with a raft of challenges.
For instance, to escape inefficiency, outages and high power costs, more industrial power consumers in the country have been setting up their own power generation plants with solar the preferred alternative. The trend has dented Kenya Power’s bottom line as industrial customers account for 58 per cent of its sales revenue.
Low power consumption by households in rural areas has also fueled the company’s multi-billion losses, with the average rural home spending Ksh3.34 daily.
Demand for power has remained significantly below projected levels, affecting Kenya Power which has been at the heart of a major state-backed nationwide electrification program over the past decade.
“The company operated in a challenging environment over the financial year under review, where demand growth at 3.7% remained below the projected level of 5%,” the firm noted in its latest annual report.
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