Kenya Power has confirmed the restoration of its prepaid token purchase and bill payment systems across all channels, ending a disruption that had left thousands of customers unable to buy electricity tokens or settle their bills.
In a customer alert issued on Thursday, the utility said its payment platforms had gone down due to a system interruption affecting token purchases and electricity bill payments nationwide. The outage was first reported early in the morning, sparking frustration among customers who found themselves unable to top up their prepaid meters even after power had been restored to their homes.
By mid-afternoon, Kenya Power confirmed that the systems were back online, though it cautioned that customers would experience delays in receiving their purchased tokens.
“We wish to inform our customers that all our prepaid payment platforms have been restored, and customers are now able to buy tokens. However, the high number of transactions is causing delays in the delivery of tokens to customers. We are working to clear the backlog as soon as possible to ensure real-time delivery. We apologise for the inconvenience caused,” the company said in a statement.
The company did not disclose the specific cause of the system interruption but had earlier assured customers that technical teams were working around the clock to resolve the issue.
The payment glitch came less than a day after a widespread blackout plunged large parts of the country into darkness. That outage, first reported at around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, affected Nairobi, the Coast, Mt Kenya and parts of the Central Rift, while sections of the North Rift and Western regions remained on supply throughout.
Kenya Power attributed the blackout to a technical disturbance on the national grid. The utility restored power in phases, energising the Lanet, Naivasha and Juja Road substations by 10:11 p.m. before progressively returning other regions to service, with supply fully restored to all affected customers by 2:00 a.m. on Thursday.
The back-to-back disruptions, first the blackout and then the payment system downtime, left many Kenyans without electricity access for an extended stretch, even as the company worked to normalise operations on both fronts.
Kenya Power has advised customers to keep checking its official communication channels for further updates as it works through the backlog of pending token deliveries.
