The Kenyan government said on Monday it would gradually restore power following the country’s third major blackout in four months, adding to the situation’s further escalation growing dissatisfaction with President William Ruto about a deteriorating economic situation and his policies since taking office 15 months ago.

The blackout hit large parts of the country after 7:30 p.m. local time on Sunday, with Kenya Power, the state-owned energy supplier, shows on a “suspected fault in the power grid”.

Quarters in the capital Nairobi were plunged into darknessAccording to the Kenya Airports Authority, two terminals at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport also lost power.

Kenya generates most of its electricity from renewable resources, including geothermal, wind and solar. But old infrastructure, corruption and illegal connections have made the network unreliable and are constantly increasing Electricity taxes mean that electricity bills are too expensive for many Kenyans.

Jomo Kenyatta Airport is one of them the busiest junctions in Africa with millions of passengers per year.

The airport authority announced this in a statement On Sunday evening, AFP news agency said that two of the airport’s four generators – which had been tested last week – “could not be activated immediately”, but that the control tower and runway remained operational during the power outage.

Video material shared on social media And Broadcast on local television showed passengers finding their way through darkened terminals using the flashlights on their phones.

Kenya’s Transport Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said the government would launch an investigation into the cause of the outage.

“Given the frequency of the power outages and taking into account the fact that JKIA is a facility of strategic national importance, we are making a formal request to the National Police Service to investigate possible acts of sabotage and cover-up,” Mr Murkomen said of the airport outages on Sunday evening in a statement on the social media platform X.

But on Monday, Energy and Petroleum Minister Davis Chirchir offered a less dire explanation for the blackout, attributing it to overloading on a transmission line in western Kenya.

Mr Chirchir said the energy grid had long been plagued by underinvestment and he promised that the government would build a new transmission line in the next 20 months in collaboration with foreign investors and governments. To ease the strain on the power grid, authorities would consider rotating blackouts, he said.

“We will plan for minimal load shedding,” Mr. Chirchir said, “so that we don’t have to unnecessarily bring down the entire country due to overload.”

Some parts of Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa were still without power on Monday afternoon, a day before Kenya marks its 60th Independence Day.

Power outages are common in Kenya, but the frequency and scale of recent outages have caused widespread concern.

In November, the engineers needed almost everything 10 hours to restore power after an outage affected many parts of the country. That followed a 14-hour power outage in August that paralyzed businesses and affected operations at Jomo Kenyatta Airport.

Mr Murkomen, the transport minister, responded by firing the airport authority’s managing director and pledged that the situation would not repeat itself.

At that time it was still Kenya Power accused Malfunctions in the country’s largest wind farm lead to a power outage while the electricity generator pointed his finger at the national network.

Mr Ruto has faced intense criticism and growing public anger as Kenya’s economic problems deepened. After come into office In September 2022, he eliminated fuel subsidies and increased taxes, just like him hosted lavish state dinners at home and made dozens of trips abroad.

Over the past year, inflation has continued to rise, the Kenyan currency has continued to depreciate and the cost of food and fuel has skyrocketed. Torrential rains and severe floods, exacerbated by climate changealso have Chaos caused In recent weeks, dozens of people have been killed and tens of thousands of others displaced.

There will continue to be power outages until the new transmission lines are built, Mr Chichir warned on Monday.

“It is a challenge that we as a country are really ashamed of and need to address,” said Mr Chirchir, who was at the airport and had just returned to Kenya from the United Arab Emirates when the power went out.