In May this year the President William Ruto announced that the billion dollar data centre planned by Microsoft and G42 at Olkaria, Naivasha couldn’t proceed as designed, because turning it on would have meant switching off power to a large part of the country.
The first phase alone was to draw 100 megawatts from a grid whose peak demand already presses against its installed capacity.
Whatever one thinks of the decision, it told us something uncomfortable. The investment was announced, celebrated and timetabled before the most basic questions about what it would take from Kenya, and what Kenya would get in return, had been answered.
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