If you send Kenya Power Sh1,000 for electricity tokens, only Sh712.07 will be your actual expenditure while the rest will go to taxes and levies to particular organisations.
This is the result of new tariffs that the ERC announced in July, scrapping the monthly fixed fee of Sh150. The changes have seen low end users benefit from a 82 percent reduction.
More on this: High spenders hit as state rolls out pro-poor power structure
The Sh712.07 will get you 45.07 tokens, the tax being Sh132.66, the fuel index Sh112.66, the forex charge Sh2.25 and the inflation adjustment another Sh2.25
REP gets Sh35.6, WARMA Sh1.16 and the Energy Regulatory Commission Sh1.35.
The actual expenditure accounts for 71.2 per cent of the cost, the tax 13.3 per cent, the fuel index 11.27, forex 0.23 per cent and inflation another 0.23 per cent.
REP takes up 3.56 per cent, WARMA 0.12 per cent and the ERC 0.14.
The following is the breakdown:
The levy passed on to the ERC, the regulatory arm of the energy sector, is currently set at three cents per kilowatt hour.
Also read: Relief as ERC scraps Sh150 fixed charge on electricity
According to Kenya Power, REP's levy is five percent of the cost of power consumed by a customer. It is passed on to the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) for rural electrification projects.
The share that WARMA (Water Resource Management Authority) gets is for energy purchased from hydropower plants above 1MW.
The Forex adjustment is the foreign exchange component related to the fluctuation of hard currencies against the Kenya shilling for expenditure related to the power sector, for example, projects loan repayments.
Prepaid customers pay more than those in the postpaid category.
For example, a consumer whose monthly bill is Sh466 used 21 units, with Sh331.80 as the actual expenditure on the units.
This means the consumer spent Sh15.8 for each unit, Sh72.36 on fuel costs and levies (15.65 per cent), Sh61.82 on taxes (13.37 percent) and Sh0.02 on adjustments (0.004 percent).
The following is a sample breakdown for a prepaid customer with a monthly bill of Sh488:
In a KTN interview on Monday, ERC Chief Executive Officer Pavel Oimeke said the cost of electricity has declined by 14.1 per cent.
While noting that the lifeline tariff was changed from consumers of 0 to 50 units to those who use 0 to 10, Pavel explained that Kenyans below living below the poverty line were considered.
"If you consume more than 11 units [per billing period], your cost is much higher because there is no subsidy," he said, adding Kenyans should pay their taxes and await their August bills and make comparisons instead of speculating.
Low end users are having it easier as the cost has been loaded on extra charges for those who consume beyond 11kwh within a billing period.
Majority of Kenyans who use an average of 50Kwh of power per month now pay more than double.
Each unit now costs Sh15.80 hence 50Kwh will cost Sh790 plus Sh125 in fuel cost fee and other levies, bringing the total to at least Sh930. This is Sh430 more compared to previous tariff.
ERC further lowered fuel costs from Sh4.60 per Kwh to Sh2.50, forex charge to Sh0.05 from Sh1.22 and inflation fee from Sh0.52 to Sh0.05. It did not change other levies including WARMA and ERC fees.
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