Court hands serial vandal six-year jail term

George Odiyo, who was arraigned before Kitale Law Courts on 1st April 2025, was charged with four offenses, including vandalism of energy infrastructure, stealing energy equipment, handling stolen energy equipment, and carrying out electrical installation work without authority.

Odiyo, described by prosecutors as a habitual offender with previous convictions for similar offenses, pleaded guilty to all the charges. For the first two counts of vandalism of energy infrastructure and stealing energy equipment, he was handed a 3-year jail term for each count with an option of a Kshs. 5 million fine.

On the third count, where he was accused of handling stolen energy equipment, he was sentenced to five months in prison with an option of Kshs. 100,000 fine. On the fourth count, Odiyo was accused of carrying out electrical installation works without authority. For this, he was sentenced to five months behind bars with an option of KShs.100,000 fine.

“We welcome the court’s decision to impose stiff penalties on this individual as it sends a strong message that vandalism of critical energy infrastructure will not be tolerated. We are working closely with the relevant law enforcement agencies to weed out all illegal activities on our network. This ruling is a major boost toward our effort to curb vandalism and theft of electricity through illegal connections,” said Maj. Geoffrey Kigen (Rtd.), Kenya Power’s Security Services Manager.

The energy infrastructure has been a frequent target of vandals and criminals, resulting in widespread power outages, disruptions to essential services, and substantial financial losses being the cost of replacement for vandalized infrastructure and lost electricity sales.

The Company urges members of the public to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activities around energy installations to the police or at any of its offices located across the country.