Was Kenya blackout result of independent power producers fighting price cuts?
Was Kenya national blackout result of independent producers fighting price cuts?

Kenya's entire power grid was taken out on Tuesday, leading to a countrywide blackout.
Kenya Power said the outage was caused by a pylon collapse.
The public electricity distributor announced in the afternoon that power supply had been restored to the bulk of the country.
— Kenya Power (@KenyaPower_Care) January 11, 2022
This was soon followed by notice of a power outage affecting Nairobi's central business district because of a transmission fault.
Bruce Whitfield interviews Francois Conradie, Lead Political Economist at Oxford Economics Africa.
Conradie says there's mounting speculation that Kenya Power's explanation for the blackout is suspicious.
Kenya Power says it was due to a collapsing pylon... on the line between a big hydro-electric plant at Nairobi which brought down the power grid for the entire country, but a lot of people are a bit skeptical about that explanation...
Francois Conradie, Lead Political Economist - Oxford Economics Africa
... about how it could be possible for Kenya Power to have a grid that can be brought down nationally by a single fault on one line... whether this isn't a pushback by people in the electricity generation business against the cuts to power prices by the President.
Francois Conradie, Lead Political Economist - Oxford Economics Africa
President Uhuru Kenyatta announced in December that he was going to cut electricity prices by 30%. Last week the first cut of 15% was implemented and the government promised to cut by another 15% by the end of March...
Francois Conradie, Lead Political Economist - Oxford Economics Africa
Listen to Conradie's update on news from the continent on Africa Business Focus:

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