Timber dealership firm, Timsales Limited, has bagged a new Sh29.08 million contract to supply treated wooden poles to the State-owned Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation (Rerec).
A new disclosure showed that the contract awarded to Timsales on July 19, 2024, will run until December 17, 2024.
Timsales is co-owned by billionaire businessman Jaswant Singh Rai and Manvinder Rai.
The latest Rerec deal consolidates a string of pole supply contracts won by the Rai family in the energy sector.
Another Rai family-linked firm, Rai Cement, which is owned by Sarbjit Singh Rai, Rajbir Singh Rai and Amaanraj Singh Rai, only recently won a contract to supply concrete poles to Kenya Power in a Sh118,625,080 deal that runs to July 7, 2025.
In 2020, Rai Cement also won a contract to deliver concrete poles valued at Sh70.13 million, while its sister company Timsales Limited won a deal to supply wooden poles worth Sh112.87 million.
Rerec and Kenya Power are currently implementing various projects aimed at maximising the last-mile connection of customers.
For example, Rerec targets to connect power to 690,000 households in rural areas within the current financial year even though this would be dependent on the availability of the Sh14.5 billion funding request made to the National Treasury.
Kenya Power, on its part, has rolled out a series of customer connectivity projects, including one financed through a Sh1.85 billion grant by the Japanese government through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).
In the Jica venture, Kenya Power in July revealed that some 9,121 households in four counties would be connected to the national grid.
This will mark the fifth phase of the Last Mile Connectivity Project (LMCP), which is being implemented by the State-owned firm, with households in Nakuru, Kilifi, Kwale and Nyandarua counties set to benefit.
The Jica grant came two months after Kenya Power signed 26 contracts at State House Nairobi to implement the fourth phase of the LMCP project.
This phase, which will cost Sh27 billion, is being funded by the French Development Agency, the European Union, and the European Investment Bank. It will connect a total of 280,000 new customers to the grid by November 2025.
Kenya Power’s LMCP project has raised demands with several other companies joining Rai Cement in the supply deals.
For example, Bett Company [K] Limited, which is owned by China’s Zhai Yan Quan and Yang Yi, which is linked to Beijing Electric Power Transmission & Transformation Company Limited, will supply concrete poles to Kenya Power in a Sh192,166,760 contract that runs to July 6, 2025.
Another company Line Enterprises Company Limited, which is co-owned by businesswomen Susan Njeri Macharia and Wangui Kimathi, has been awarded a deal to supply Kenya Power with concrete poles worth Sh174,410,640 in a deal that also runs to June 6, 2025.
Other big beneficiaries of the Kenya Power concrete pole contracts are Makuyu Concrete Products Limited (Sh103,008,000) and Meru Supreme Industries Limited (Sh67,946,420).
