Kenya Power Company (KPLC) will pay more than ksh500 million to the owner of a building that once housed the Nakumatt Downtown store for the damage caused by the 2009 fire.
Justice Josephine Mong'are determined that Woolworths Limited had filed a complaint against KPLC for the January 28, 2009 fire, which killed at least 30 persons.
The judge dismissed the accusations against Nakumatt Limited and its director, Atulkumar Shah. Justice Mong'are concluded that the Nakumatt was not responsible for the incident.
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The Judge decided that Woolworths broke its lease agreement with Nakumatt by failing to insure the facility for 2009.
At the same time, she saw that Nakumatt's generator was still operational, and there was no sign that any hazardous products sold by the store had spilled or detonated.
On the other hand, the judge held KPLC liable due to its inconsistent narrative of what happened.
She stated that the fire was caused by mistakes made while addressing a malfunction at a transformer at Nation Centre.
In the case, KPLC claimed that the power loss and subsequent repairs could not have caused the fire because the other nearby buildings did not catch fire, nor was the transformer destroyed or damaged.
However, the technician fixing the transformer acknowledged turning it off to prevent the fire from spreading further.
The Judge saw that a fire broke out at Nakumatt after electricity was restored.
The judgment comes after an inquiry failed to identify anybody responsible for the incident.
A magistrate's court determined that humans did not cause the Nakumatt fire disaster, but that multiple significant fire prevention and fighting errors exacerbated an already catastrophic situation.
