Kenya secures 625mln USD to scale up electricity access

Kenya has secured 625 million U.S. dollars to finance a power project aimed at accelerating national electricity access to 70 percent by 2017, officials said on Monday.

Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum, Charles Keter said the government has rolled out a transformative agenda dubbed 'last mile'to ensure more Kenyans get access to electricity.

Keter revealed that the second phase of the project has received 120 million dollars from the French Development Agency and 70 million dollars from the European Investment Bank.

The African Development Bank and the World Bank have provided 435 million dollars as initial fund of the project.

The Last Mile Connectivity Project will help improve quality of electricity supply for accelerated development and achieve universal access by 2020 in the country.

"The commitments bring much needed cash injection to enable the government and Kenya Power provide subsidy for electricity connections to Kenyans," Keter said during the commission of the project in Nandi county, northwest Kenya.

Keter added 2 million Kenyans have been connected to electricity in the last three years and electricity provision is critical for the government to speed up economic growth.

Dr.Ben Chumo, Managing Director and CEO of Kenya Power said the Last Mile Connectivity Project will help the company realize the goal of connecting more than one million Kenyans to the grid annually.

Kenya Power is the owner and operator of most of the electricity transmission and distribution in the country.

Chumo said under the project, households within a 600-metre radius from the transformers will be subsidized. Enditem