The Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) is facing serious financial problems and yet has failed to
collect some 78 billion shillings being outstanding bills owed by the
government, public and private institutions.
Despite the unpredictable general
revenue situation according to him, the power utility firm was
relatively on average existing capacity showing no plan to supply power
on rationing arrangement as feared by many.
"It is true we are operating
on losses but we are trying to maintain the existing production capacity
and avoiding power rationing at any cost," he said. The company has
since embarked on a debt collection mission to boost its coffers.
He said for the last four days some
power cuts were reported in different areas in the country because of
the ongoing rehabilitations in a number of plants and stations to do
away with unstable power production systems.
Although he was uncertain to
precisely state when the country will be able to produce enough power,
he was certain on the current production which now stands at 750 MW and
850 MW during peak hours.
However, he was concerned over the huge
costs incurred to maintain fuel powered plants currently producing 365MW
with those using diesel feasting 1.36 million litres a day.
The
consumption forces Tanesco to part with 5.4bn/- a day while it can only
manage collecting revenues not more than 2bn/- a day thanks to the
subsidy arrangement from the government.
Since July last year to February this
year the government had dished out 231.2bn/- to reinforce operations
which consumed over 650bn/- in total to sustain the services and more
importantly avoid power rationing.
On claims that the Company owes
billions to Songas, Engineer Mramba admitted on the debt but was
hesitant to disclose more details due to legal contractual obligations
and technicalities.
"It is true we owe Songas but all our
partnership agreements are in accordance with legal contracts signed
between the two parties that can not be disclosed publicly. But we are
paying them accordingly," he said.
On some new products, the MD announced
a new arrangement still in pipeline with the Tanzania Communications
Regulatory Authority (TCRA) where from June customers will be notified
on various matters through short message services.
Some of the messages will be about power
cuts information where customers will be notified on its causes.
Another
system, he said, will be installed in Dar es Salaam to start with where
technicians will be made easy to allocate technical faults due to power
cuts and attend them as soon as they occur.
The system called
Distribution Scada will be installed and work with GPS system to simply
manage the operations technically.
On power poles tendering processes, he
denied allegations that Tanesco denies local companies from tendering
for supply of the poles and said the tendering process has been
transparent with international bidding arrangement.
"We are having six
companies, three local and three foreign, to supply the poles according
to the Public Procurement Act requirements and there is no problem with
that area," he said.
Source: The Daily News, www.dailynews.co.tz, reported by Pius Rugonzibwa in Dar es Salaam