Businesses and households have suffered losses and inconvenience following a technical glitch in Kenya Power’s token vending system that persisted for more than 17 hours by Thursday afternoon.
The glitch, which began on Wednesday night after a widespread power outage, affected customers attempting to buy tokens via the *977# USSD code or the M-Pesa paybill. The purchase attempts were met with ‘failed transaction messages instead of confirmation of their purchases.
“Transaction failed. M-Pesa cannot complete payment of Sh1,000.00 to KPLC PREPAID. Please try again shortly,” read a message from M-Pesa.
Others received an ‘internal system error’ prompt directing them to try another payment method.
Unlike in previous incidents, when customers could switch to the M-Pesa paybill if the USSD service failed, this time the disruption appeared to affect both channels simultaneously. This left many prepaid customers with no immediate way of purchasing electricity tokens. A review of social media platforms revealed widespread frustrations by businesses and households as many of them reported stalled operations and inconvenience of non-functional electronic equipment such as fridges and television sets.
The outage also disrupted businesses that depend on a constant power supply, with some being unable to continue operations after exhausting their prepaid units. Households were also affected, as customers whose electricity had run out were left unable to recharge their meters.
Kenya Power acknowledged the disruption, stating that it was experiencing technical issues affecting its token vending system. However, the company has not released a formal notice regarding the issue.
“Good morning. Please note that our token vending system is currently facing a technical issue. Our team is already working on it to restore normal services. In the meantime, please keep trying. We apologise for any inconvenience caused,” the utility company responded to a customer complaint on X.
Safaricom also acknowledged the problem, informing one customer that an issue affecting electricity token purchases was being resolved.
“…there is a system issue affecting token purchases, but we are working on a resolution. We apologise for the inconvenience,” Safaricom said in a response on X to a customer.
The payment system failure occurred just hours after a nationwide blackout plunged much of the country into darkness on Wednesday evening.
Technical disturbance
Kenya Power attributed the outage to a technical disturbance on the national grid. The blackout began shortly after 8:30 pm and affected Nairobi, the Coast region, Mt Kenya and parts of the Central Rift. Meanwhile, the North Rift and Western regions remained supplied with electricity.
Electricity was restored in phases throughout the night, with Kenya Power announcing that power had been fully restored to all affected customers by around 2 am on Thursday.
This latest disruption is similar to one experienced in July 2023, when prepaid customers were unable to purchase electricity tokens for several hours due to a network disturbance affecting Kenya Power’s payment channels. At the time, Kenya Power advised customers to use banks and Airtel Money as alternative payment methods before services were restored later that day.
Kenya has also experienced several major nationwide blackouts in recent years. In December 2025, a disturbance on the Kenya-Uganda interconnector triggered a nationwide outage, while in December 2023, another blackout disrupted operations at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. In August 2023, the country experienced one of its longest power outages.
