Kenya Power has been forced to return a breakdown of charges in pre-paid electricity tokens amid a regulatory probe. The scrutiny came a few days after the government-owned utility announced that it would stop providing the complete bills to customers.

The national power supplier had no other choice but to revert its decision and get back to the billing format that offered households a chance to interrogate their payment statements.

What drew the probe was the fact that the company did not give an official statement behind the reduced disclosure on the electricity token receipts.

Start off your week with tech news recap and trending conversations in your inbox

Enter valid email-id

Subscribe

I prefer it on Telegram

Since early this month, consumers across the country have been receiving payment statements via their phones without the usual breakdown of charges. The charges consisted of monthly variable items like fuel and foreign exchange adjustments expenses.

As reported earlier, the charges were just be lumped together and appeared as other charged in payment statements to mobile phones. According to a report from Business Daily, this comes as the national power supplier suffers from a rise in fuel surcharge and forex adjustment costs.

However, the rise in fuel charges is associated with the shilling that has been dropping in value lately.

Without details of fuel costs charge, consumers are unable to gauge how the use of expensive thermal electricity on the national grid is affecting electricity prices.

Kenya Power was recently on the spot for giving preference to expensive thermal power over cheaper options such as geothermal and hydro, effectively setting up consumers for higher electricity prices.