•The utility firm is among the at least 150 state corporations that faced delays in the signing off of financial audit and results occasioned by vacuum in the auditor general’s office.
•The auditor general is responsible for the approval of audited financial results for state agencies. Kenya Power has finally released its audited results for the financial year ended June 30, 2019, confirming a 91.9 per cent drop in profit.
The utility firm is among the close to 150 state corporations that faced delays in the signing off of their financial audit and results, following a vacuum in the auditor general’s office between August last year and June this year.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s nominee-Janet Gathungu took over office in July, almost one year since her predecessor Edward Ouko left in August 2019, after completing his eight-year term.
The auditor general is responsible for the approval of audited financial results for state agencies.
Another entity whose results were affected due to the vacuum was power generating company-KenGen.
In its financials released to investors yesterday, through the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), Kenya Power reported a net profit for the year ended June 30, of Sh262 million, a drop from Sh3.3 billion the previous year.
This, as investors continue to miss out on dividends as the company has already issued a profit warning for the year ended June 2020.
“The directors do not recommend payment of a dividend to shareholders,” the financial results, signed by company secretary Imelda Bore, stated.
The drop in profit is mainly attributed to increased non-fuel power purchase costs which rose by Sh18.1 billion to Sh70.9 billion, from Sh52.8 billion in a similar period in 2018.
This was propelled by the commissioning of two power plants with a combined generation capacity of 360MW.“In addition, finance costs rose by Sh3.2 billion due to increased levels of short-term borrowing and foreign exchange losses,” Bore notes in results.The costly purchases eroded gains made on revenues from electricity sales which grew by Sh16.9 billion to close at Sh112.4 billion, from Sh95.4 billion the previous year, a 17.8 per cent increase.The rise in revenue is partly attributed to a tariff review at the beginning of the year prior to the subsequent tariff harmonisation that lowered rates for small commercial customers and broadened life-line tariff for domestic customers.“The growth in revenue was also supported by a 3.4 per cent increase in unit sales from 7,905 GWh to 8,174 GWh owing to an expanding customer […]
