TikToker shows Kenyans how to spend less for prepaid electricity tokens
By Winnie MabelAs Kenyans continue complaining of high electricity bills which could be caused by bypass issues, a TikToker by the name Jimmy Electrician1 showed his fellow citizens how they could spend less on prepaid electricity tokens by fixing bypass issues on token meters.
In a video demo, the TikToker held a Hexing CIU EV500 meter which has the word ‘bypass’ displaying on the meter screen and a red alarm light on, and explained how the user could fix it; and eventually pay less for electricity in the long run.
“Hello guys, I hope you are well. I have come here to remove the bypass. This means that this tenant is paying higher bills because his tokens deplete very fast. It is because of this kind of name (bypass) or the wiring has a problem. I looked at his breaker box in the house and found no problem with his wiring so I’d like us to go upstairs and see where the problem is then we’ll come back downstairs and you will see that the bypass is gone,” began Jimmy.
In the other breaker box, he found the bypass problem. A breaker box frame bolt had pierced one of the wires (black in color) and made the metal in the breaker box and the black wire come into contact.
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“So you find that this bolt had connected the neutral bar and the earth, hence causing the bypass. If you separate them, the bypass ends,” he explained.
He went back downstairs to the token meter and found that the bypass was gone and the display showed the amount of tokens available for use.
Jimmy explained that the tenant’s electricity consumption will return to normal. He also cautioned people to make sure electricians doing their wirings in their houses know what a bypass is and how to fix it.
Following his video, many Kenyans sought his services to come and look at their electricity wiring as many complained of paying high bills for tokens only to use them for three days at most.
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“After every 3 days a 1000 Bob gone🥺,” said Mariah Onchari.
“1,000 takes me for 4- days , Is that within the normal range or high consumption range?” asked Faith & Steph.
“Some fundi did this to me, nilispend tokens za 800 in 3days, lucky enough…I was able to notice the bypass thing and my landlord had to refund me 400,” added Myrramercy.
“2days 1k 🥺 monthly i use 14k sometimes more 🥺,” lamented Princess Fatimah.
Since the Kenya Kwanza government came into power, the cost of electricity shot up by 67 per cent.
According to the Business Daily, consumers with monthly consumption of between 31kWh and 100kWh saw their tariffs rise by 19 per cent to Sh26.10 and Sh26.22 respectively.
A Business Daily analysis of data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) revealed that the average price of 50 kilowatts/units (kWh) of electricity has increased from Sh796.83 in August 2022 to a mean of Sh1,326.54 at the end of May 2023.
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