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ADVERTThe message delivered by Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum Opiyo Wandayi alongside President William Ruto at Kisumu’s Jua Kali Grounds was deceptively simple: electricity is not merely about lighting homes—it is about powering enterprise, creating jobs and transforming livelihoods.
The choice of the Jua Kali Grounds as the climax of the President’s development engagements in Kisumu gave the message particular resonance.
Here, among mechanics, welders, fabricators, artisans and small-scale entrepreneurs, electricity is not an abstract policy statistic. It is the power behind welding machines, compressors, lathes, fabrication equipment, refrigeration units and countless other tools through which ordinary Kenyans earn their livelihoods.
That setting therefore offered a useful lens through which to understand the government’s broader energy agenda.
From megawatts to livelihoods
ADVERTWandayi’s message placed energy policy within the practical realities of the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
The argument is straightforward: if Kenya wants its micro, small and medium enterprises to grow, then they need more than access to markets and finance. They need reliable and affordable electricity.
A workshop cannot increase production if machines remain idle because of unreliable power. A fabricator cannot competitively execute a large order if electricity costs make production prohibitively expensive. A young entrepreneur cannot meaningfully benefit from acquiring modern equipment if the power infrastructure around the enterprise cannot support it.
The real measure of an energy policy, therefore, is ultimately what happens beyond power stations and transmission lines.
It is what happens inside the workshop.
It is what happens in the market.
It is what happens in the classroom, training centre, factory and small business.
This is where the language of megawatts must eventually meet the language of livelihoods.
Power, finance and skills must move together
Wandayi also placed energy within the wider ecosystem required to turn small enterprises into sustainable businesses.
Electricity can power equipment, but entrepreneurs must be able to acquire that equipment. Financing can provide the capital, but workers must have the technical skills required to operate modern machinery. Training can produce skilled workers, but those skills must find productive environments in which they can be deployed.
The three therefore reinforce one another: power, finance and skills.
A failure in any one of these areas can diminish the value of investment in the others.
For Kenya’s Jua Kali sector, this is particularly important. The sector has long demonstrated remarkable capacity for innovation, apprenticeship and self-employment, but its ability to move from survivalist activity into larger-scale production depends partly on the infrastructure surrounding it.
Reliable electricity can reduce dependence on expensive alternatives, improve productivity and allow enterprises to plan their operations with greater certainty.
Kisumu as a laboratory for the energy-enterprise connection
The Kisumu engagement also placed energy within a much larger development picture.
President Ruto’s tour brought together infrastructure interventions involving roads, water, housing, markets and other public facilities. Yet the value of these investments ultimately depends on whether they create environments in which citizens can produce, trade, learn and build businesses.
A modern market requires dependable utilities.
A technical training institution needs electricity to operate modern equipment.
An industrial facility needs power to sustain production.
A small enterprise needs reliable electricity to compete.
Energy consequently becomes the invisible infrastructure connecting many seemingly unrelated development projects.
This is why the Jua Kali venue was more than a backdrop for a political rally. It brought the energy conversation directly into the spaces where economic activity takes place.
From powering Kisumu to powering Nyanza
Wandayi’s message also carried a regional dimension.
Kisumu and the wider Nyanza region have enormous potential to become stronger centres of commerce, manufacturing, agriculture and services. Realising that potential will require infrastructure capable of supporting expanding economic activity.
That includes electricity generation, transmission, distribution and reliable connections to enterprises and communities.
The longer-term energy ambitions for the region—including major generation projects such as the proposed nuclear power development in Siaya—are consequently being presented within a broader vision of transforming Nyanza from primarily a consumer of energy into a stronger participant in Kenya’s energy economy.
That vision, however, will ultimately be judged not only by the scale of generation projects but by how effectively the resulting energy supports productive economic activity.
The distance between a power plant and a Jua Kali workshop may be measured in kilometres. The policy challenge is ensuring that the economic benefits of the former can be felt in the latter.
The real test begins after the rally
Large public gatherings naturally generate political symbolism. But the more important question is what happens after the speeches.
For the artisan at Jua Kali, the relevant questions are practical.
Is electricity available when it is needed?
Is it affordable enough to sustain production?
Can businesses obtain new connections without prohibitive costs or delays?
Can entrepreneurs access financing to purchase modern equipment?
Are technical training programmes producing workers with skills demanded by emerging industries?
And can the infrastructure being built today support the enterprises Kenya hopes to create tomorrow?
These questions provide a more grounded framework for evaluating the energy-development agenda than headline figures alone.
Adding megawatts to the national grid is important. Expanding transmission infrastructure matters. Increasing access to electricity matters.
But their economic significance becomes much clearer when the power reaches the places where Kenyans are actually producing goods, providing services and creating employment.
A new language for energy policy
Wandayi’s Kisumu message effectively sought to shift the public conversation about energy from infrastructure alone to productivity.
That is an important distinction.
Electricity is an infrastructure asset, but it is also an economic input. Its ultimate value is determined partly by what it enables people and businesses to do.
A reliable power supply can help an artisan increase production, enable a mechanic to use modern diagnostic equipment, support a manufacturer to expand output and give a young entrepreneur the confidence to invest in machinery.
At that level, energy policy becomes economic policy.
The phrase “Powering Kisumu and powering the New Kenya” therefore captures two interconnected ambitions.
The first is local: improve energy access and reliability so that Kisumu’s businesses and institutions can operate more effectively.
The second is national: build an energy system capable of supporting a more productive, industrialised and opportunity-driven economy.
The Jua Kali sector provides perhaps the clearest illustration of why the two ambitions cannot be separated.
Kenya’s economic transformation will not be achieved exclusively through large factories or mega-projects. It will also be built incrementally by thousands of welders, mechanics, artisans, farmers, traders, technicians and entrepreneurs whose businesses collectively form the foundation of local economies.
If energy policy can make those enterprises more productive, then electricity becomes much more than a utility.
It becomes an instrument of economic transformation.
And that, ultimately, was the significance of Wandayi’s energy message in Kisumu: the success of Kenya’s power agenda will be measured not only in megawatts generated, but in the businesses powered, skills enabled, jobs created and livelihoods transformed.
