NAIROBI, KENYA – Hellena Wanjiku, 29, lives in Wanyee, an area west of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, with her sister and brother-in-law. She works as a hairdresser and manages one of the couple’s salons. But she says that recent power cuts have hurt business.
“Electricity is central to the thriving of my business – heating water, powering the radio, which is for entertaining my clients, hair drying and styling,” Wanjiku says with a loud sigh.
She says her most recent electricity bill was outrageous.
“My electricity bill this month was crazy,” she says helplessly. “It’ll eat up all my profits! I was in shock when I read the bill.”
She says she’s not sure why it was so high, but that she has heard that the cost of electricity has been increasing.
“I’m perplexed that my bill is so high this time,” she says. “I heard over the radio that the cost of it will increase. This could be the reason.”
She says the bill is so high that she wonders whether the power company made a mistake.
“Maybe they made some mistake because my appliances are so few,” she says. “And I do not use the premise through the night because I live at my sister’s house or on Sundays, when I take rest from work.”
She says the high electricity bill has made it hard to afford other items she needs to run the salon.
“The thought of restocking scares me,” she says, her eyes filled with despair. “Prices of hair, skin and related beauty products are so high. My customers are now paying more for beauty treatments and hairdo in order for the business to be cushioned against the rapid inflation.”
Most of Wanjiku’s clients come from the surrounding slums, such as Wanyee and Kawangware, for hair-braiding or blow-drying.
”I’m afraid that I will lose all my clients at this rate,” she says. “Will the low-income earners have their hair done at the expense of a meal? I’m afraid not!”
Born in Rift Valley province, Wanjiku moved in with her sister in 2002 after their parents died. She says she depends on her sister for food and shelter. She hopes to one day earn enough money at the salon to become financially independent, but power cuts and soaring costs make that dream seem possible. Now, she says she has to peg her hopes on marrying a man who can take care of her.
Women small-business owners and operators are increasingly affected by recent power cuts, as they say that their operations depend on electricity and that alternatives are expensive or inefficient. Linking the cuts to the current drought, government officials say weather conditions will only continue to deteriorate. Spokesmen for Kenya Power Company, the company responsible for electricity here, say the company is doing the best it can with insufficient power supplies and that the situation should improve by November.
Earlier in the year, several power outages raised suspicions of power rationing in Nairobi and other parts of the country. Joseph Njoroge, managing director of Kenya Power, officially announced power cuts at the end of July, citing breakdowns of generators among other causes, and released a rationing schedule. Last month, Kenya officially joined Tanzania and Uganda on the growing list of East African countries that are rationing power to domestic and industrial consumers as the region suffers from the worst drought in 60 years.
Print
