Nairobi, Kenya -
The morning scene is increasingly routine for Kenyans. When it's time
to start the day, the power is already out. Somewhere nearby, the shell
of a wrecked electrical transformer lies on its side underneath the pole
where it had been fixed seven metres off the ground.
The culprit is an unusual one: A
vandal who is selling the toxic oil, drawn from the transformer, to
chefs who use it for frying food in roadside stalls. Five litres of the
viscous, PCB-laden liquid sells for $60. It looks like cooking oil, but
lasts much longer, users say.
Kenyans' appetite for fried food and
cheap frying oil is stalling the country's urgent efforts to build a
modern electrical grid, even as it sows the seeds of a public health
crisis, experts say.
And with utility companies reporting
similar vandalism across East Africa and as far away as South Africa and
Nigeria, the crime spree is becoming another thorn in ambitious plans
to electrify Africa.
Sudden blackouts darken businesses and
communities across Africa. In a continent where 70 percent of Africans
are not yet connected to grid electricity, the World Bank says even
those manufacturers who do have a connection lose 56 days a year, on
average, to blackouts.
Consumption of PCB-laden chips poses a health risk to Kenyans
in a country where health services are already underfunded and doctors
are in short supply.
- Esther Maina, biochemist
|
Such power losses can cut revenues as
much as 20 percent for businesses that can't easily use or afford backup
generators, World Bank said.
Even companies that don't experience
blackouts are likely to suffer as utilities pass on the price of
continually replacing transformers.
In 2012, replacing transformers cost
Kenya Power $4m, about seven percent of its net profit, according to
Kevin Sang, a communications officer for the company. Umeme Uganda, a
power distributor, had to spend $2m this year, said Patrick Mwesigwa,
the company's chief financial officer.
One big problem is that the oil that
cools electrical transformers is also great for frying cassava, chips
and fish. Other than fuel, thieves tout it as a "remedy" for wounds, and
even to make cosmetics, said Tom Muhumuza, a senior project manager for
Ferdsult Engineering Services, a Ugandan firm that deals with energy
projects.
The copper wire from transformers is
sold to fix motors and as scrap metal, which enters the global market
and can end up as far away as India and China, Muhumuza said.
Kenya represents the problem in
microcosm. On paper, its goals for electrification seem promising: It's
sub-Saharan Africa's fifth biggest economy, according to the World Bank,
with better infrastructure than most. Kenya Power Ltd aims to bring
electricity to 70 percent of all Kenyans within five years, up from the
current 35 percent.
Kenya has even had some success
fighting transformer vandalism. In 2013, 535 transformers were
vandalised across the country, a stark drop from 898 in 2011, according
to Kenya Power. That may be due to a 2013 law that imposes a minimum
10-year jail sentence on transformer vandals.
Kenya Power has also started mounting
transformers in more inaccessible places, such as inside homes and much
higher up on poles.
But that's no comfort to Barnabas
Ikahu, who runs a small printing company to supplement his income as a
teacher in Kaheho, a town 200km northwest of Nairobi.
Ikahu's plant churns out calendars,
business cards, wedding invitations and photocopying and is typical of
the small businesses that are the backbone of Africa's economic growth.
His business stops every time the power goes out.
He's thinking of buying a generator to
keep things going, but that would cost around $300 - enough to erase
most of his profit when combined with the costs of generator fuel.
Even generators aren't a possibility
for Nderitu Miano, a welder based 30km away from Kaheho, because the
machines he uses to fix farm equipment or car parts suck more power than
he can get from the type of small generator he could afford.
When the power goes out, "everything
stops", he said. Customers, many of whom don't have electricity at all,
don't understand why he can't get their work done.
Within hours of the power going out,
transformer oil can end up on the street, where it creates another
health and environmental problem because it contains highly toxic
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The United States banned PCBs in 1979.
"Consumption of PCB-laden chips poses a
health risk to Kenyans in a country where health services are already
underfunded and doctors are in short supply," said Dr Esther Maina a
biochemist at the University of Nairobi. But use of the oil is so
widespread that she, herself, got sick from it when she bought chips at a
roadside stand.
Kenya Power, the firm that distributes
power in Kenya, is now thinking about building transformers that don't
use oil. Such transformers are not widely used and cost about half as
much as ones that do use oil. |
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