........"Oh no you didn't!"
Posted on 07/30/2015 8:26:57 AM PDT by dennisw
Thieves fry Kenya's power grid for fast food Vandals smash electrical transformers to steal viscous fluid that's later sold as cooking oil for roadside stalls.
Nairobi, Kenya - The morning scene is increasingly routine for Kenyans. When it's time to start the day, the power is already out. Somewhere nearby, the shell of a wrecked electrical transformer lies on its side underneath the pole where it had been fixed seven metres off the ground.
The culprit is an unusual one: A vandal who is selling the toxic oil, drawn from the transformer, to chefs who use it for frying food in roadside stalls. Five litres of the viscous, PCB-laden liquid sells for $60. It looks like cooking oil, but lasts much longer, users say.
Kenyans' appetite for fried food and cheap frying oil is stalling the country's urgent efforts to build a modern electrical grid, even as it sows the seeds of a public
And with utility companies reporting similar vandalism across East Africa and as far away as South Africa and Nigeria, the crime spree is becoming another thorn in ambitious plans to electrify Africa.
Sudden blackouts darken businesses and communities across Africa. In a continent where 70 percent of Africans are not yet connected to grid electricity, the World Bank says even those manufacturers who do have a connection lose 56 days a year, on average, to blackouts.
Such power losses can cut revenues as much as 20 percent for businesses that can’t easily use or afford backup generators, World Bank said.
Even companies that don’t experience blackouts are likely to suffer as utilities pass on the price of continually replacing transformers.
In 2012, replacing transformers cost Kenya Power $4m, about seven percent of its net profit, according to Kevin Sang, a communications officer for the company. Umeme Uganda, a power distributor, had to spend $2m this year, said Patrick Mwesigwa, the company’s chief financial officer.
One big problem is that the oil that cools electrical transformers is also great for frying cassava, chips and fish. Other than fuel, thieves tout it as a “remedy” for wounds, and even to make cosmetics, said Tom Muhumuza, a senior project manager for Ferdsult Engineering Services, a Ugandan firm that deals with energy projects.
The copper wire from transformers is sold to fix motors and as scrap metal, which enters the global market and can end up as far away as India and China, Muhumuza said.
Kenya represents the problem in microcosm. On paper, its goals for electrification seem promising: It’s sub-Saharan Africa’s fifth biggest economy, according to the World Bank, with better infrastructure than most. Kenya Power Ltd aims to bring electricity to 70 percent of all Kenyans within five years, up from the current 35 percent.
Kenya has even had some success fighting transformer vandalism. In 2013, 535 transformers were vandalised across the country, a stark drop from 898 in 2011, according to Kenya Power. That may be due to a 2013 law that imposes a minimum 10-year jail sentence on transformer vandals.
Do they use PCBs in Africa?
Obama to Kenya: “If you all become homosexuals, you will have all the cooking oil you desire”.........
Well, it’s a maybe what Obama would say, considering
Food fried in transformer oil?????
LOL that’s probably where we ship the ones we drain out.
Now, now...
All cultures are equal.
Served with a side-order of goulash "fortified" with ground-up Formica countertop.
Don't knock it till you've tried it! Yum-yum!
Regards,
I’m surprised it doesn’t taste terrible and kill you on the spot.
The Vandals took the handles.
Regards,
GtG
Remind me to never buy dinner at Kenya Fried Chicken.
Waiter there’s seems to be something wrong with my fried bat, it taste funny.
I’m sorry sir we ran out of PCBs.
If it kills Ebola its a step up. Why not just sell cheap cooking oil in the markets?
........"Oh no you didn't!"
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