Kenya Power CEO Joseph Siror’s assertion that Sh20 coins can cook githeri has received a lot of feedback online.
During a leadership discussion hosted by the Nation Media Group on Tuesday, Siror discussed the adoption of e-cooking.
He claimed that Kenyans are reluctant to use electricity to cook because they believe it to be expensive, despite the reality that it is less expensive than the alternatives.
“You can actually cook githeri with Sh 20. The idea that using electricity to cook is more expensive is more of a perception than a reality.”
He said that Kenya Power was prepared to demonstrate to customers that utilizing induction and pressure cookers reduces the cost of using energy for cooking.
This didn’t sit well with Kenyans on social media, who mostly flocked to Twitter to complain about how they used to cook githeri using electricity but had to switch to cooking with gas or even jiko because their energy cost was so exorbitant.
Others approached the discussion pragmatically, with Cytonn CEO Edwin Hande pushing netizens to back their arguments with data.
“If you have data on how much energy it takes to boil githeri, just put it on the table to counter them. Data and facts are very powerful arguments,” he said.
Another Twitter user, @W_Asherah, defended Siror, saying that his statement was correct, but that you have to invest in a pressure cooker. She added that pressure cookers are quite expensive and good ones cost thousands of shillings.
She added that if the Kenyan government could lower the price of electric cookers, then the introduction of e-cooking would be effective.
In response to @W_Asherah, a user argued that they have a pressure cooker and have had to minimise its use because their electricity bill has increased by more than Sh800 in one month since they bought it.
“Gas is cheaper than electricity,” she said.