NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 18 – Ten illegal lines and seven prepaid meters have been recovered in an operation carried out by Kenya Power personnel on Wednesday to track down electricity theft.
The power distribution equipment was retrieved from Igoji and Kanyakine areas in Meru County.
Kenya power said investigations have been instituted to arrest and prosecute the suspects.
In a similar exercise carried out in Ruiru, 1,000 meters of conductors and eight wooden poles were recovered and three suspects arrested for engaging in unlawful activities meant to disrupt power supply, boosting Kenya Power’s effort to clamp down on illegal connections.
A scrap metal dealer in Naivasha town was arrested after he was found in possession of 800 meters of aluminium conductors believed to have been stolen from low voltage lines.
In Kisumu County another suspect was arrested at Nyamasaria area with the offence of unauthorised alterations of installations while another was arrested in Kakamega while constructing an illegal line.
All the suspects have been booked in various police stations awaiting appearance in court.
Illegal lines often result in serious injury or even death to consumers of electrical energy.
In addition, they overload the network, resulting in outages thus undermining the quality of power supply to customers.