Kenya Power has announced a massive redundancy action that will affect its 1,962 employees.

The national power distributor’s Acting Chief Executive Officer Rosemary Oduor said the exercise will mainly affect ageing employees who will be replaced with 830 younger staff at a cheaper cost.

She said the layoff plan will be done through voluntary employee separation (VES) exercise.

“The company, because of low attrition rate, has an ageing and expensive workforce resulting in staff cost growing at nearly twice the rate of revenue growth,” Oduor said.

She added: “In an environment where low operational costs and agility are critical requirements, productivity and quality of service have been negatively impacted.”

The planned exercise will cost the power distributor Ksh5.3 billion and it will be implemented in a period of one year beginning May 2022.

“Implementation of the Voluntary Employees Retirement exercise for 1,962 employees, which account for 20 per cent of the total workforce, will cost Ksh5.298 billion.

“This calls for the company to put in place a human capital focused on a business sustainability plan that will enhance effective customer engagement, manage staff costs and infuse agility while at the same time managing knowledge transfer,” Oduor said.