WORLD OF FIGURES: Here's how to simplify electricity bills

Without a doubt, it is necessary to simplify the method of billing electricity. No matter how often Kenya Power and Lighting Company explains how it is done, consumers still have trouble understanding.

Even the proposed new tariff system will not solve the problem. The confusion comes from three reasons. First, there is a fixed charge that is applied if a customer consumes electricity or not.

Second, consumption is billed in a "staircase" structure where the first 50 units are billed at Sh.50 each. Then, from 51 to 1,500 units, the rate increases to 12.75 Sh per unit.

Third, there is a long list of withdrawals and adjustments that are added. For some of them, the rate per unit varies from one month to the next, while for others it is constant.

In addition, one of the levies is calculated as a percentage of the cost of consumption while all the others are charged per unit.

It is difficult to understand why we have such a complicated billing method. I suspect that it is designed to make it easier for the electricity company to do its accounts – they only capture the "energy costs" by displaying sales in the books.

In summary, consumers want to be able to predict the number of units that they will receive when they will send a certain amount of money – in the same way that motorists drive into a gas station and ask for fuel worth, say, Sh1,000.

If the advertised price is Sh108.80, the driver knows that Sh1,000 translates to 9.19 liters.

Now besides rising electricity prices (about 35 percent for most consumers), the new billing method removes the fixed fee but keeps the staircase.

For this reason, I do not think that the confusion about billing will end.

In my opinion, the Energy Regulatory Commission (REB) should implement a unit price for each clbad of consumers.

This wo As adjustments change every month, the REB should start announcing unit prices for electricity on a monthly basis – in the same way as for fuel.

] This announcement should provide a breakdown of the various costs and levies that were seized.

Following this announcement, Kenya Power will then charge consumers using the flat rate bound for that month without showing any breakdown.

A restaurant note does not show the different costs of the ingredients used in preparing your meal!

In addition to simplifying the billing method, this flat rate system has the advantage of revealing the true unit cost of electricity in Kenya. [19659002] At the moment, a customer can not say this cost by simply looking at the bill – you need a pen, a paper and a calculator to solve it.