A suppressed demand for electricity by large consumers and depreciation of the Kenya shilling against major currencies led to a steep drop in Kenya Power’s half-year’s earning.
Profit after tax for the first six months trading period ended December 31, 2020 fell by 80% to Kshs. 138 million from Ksh. 692 million in the same period of 2019.
Kenya power’s financial results for the six months to December 2020 shows revenue from the sale of electricity fell to Kshs. 70 billion compared to Kshs. 69.6 billion at the end of December 2019.
Transmission and distribution costs dropped 19% to Kshs. 18.7 billion from Kshs. 23 billion in the corresponding half -year period in 2019.
“We experienced the challenges that every business has faced since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic which presented unprecedented effects to the economy. For our case, the pandemic had a primary impact on our sales and revenue collection as companies scaled down operations and customers were unable to meet their bill obligations on time due to suppressed incomes,” said Kenya Power’s Managing Director & CEO, Bernard Ngugi.
The depreciation of the Kenya shilling against major currencies pushed up Kenya Power’s power purchase costs, with non-fuel power purchase expenses jumping up 2.5% to 38.12 billion in December 2020 from 37.2 billion shillings.
Additionally, the cost of finance shot up by 110% to KSh8.057 billion from KSh3.835 billion the previous year due to the weakening of the shilling against major currencies.
The company says going forward its main focus is on growing sales, enhancing revenue collection, managing costs, and enhancing system efficiencies.
