Power
firm Songas yesterday sent out a distress signal, saying it may have to switch
off its plant if TANESCO does not settle a 30 million US dollars (about 48bn/-)
bill for services provided this year.
The
firm indicated that the country may be plunged into darkness should TANESCO
fail to pay for generation of electricity supplied so far this year. Songas
needs the money to maintain its facilities and it may have to shut down if the
payment is not made soon.
Seventeen
regions are currently served by the national grid and the demand, as of
yesterday, was 800 megawatts. If Songas were to remove 180mw, which is 22.5 per
cent of the total generation, regions connected to the national grid would face
an acute power shortage.
“Songas
has yet to receive any payments for the generation we have provided in 2012,”
said Managing Director Chris Ford. “With
such a lot of money not received, we are finding it very difficult to finance
our own activities.”
Asked
when Songas was likely to switch off its power generation facilities, Mr Ford
said: “I am not sure we can give you a direct date, and we are not issuing any
threats.”
The
permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Mr Eliakim Maswi,
referred this reporter to TANESCO managing director William Mhando, saying he
(Maswi) handles policy issues and not Tanesco debts.
But when reached by phone, Mr Mhando quipped:
“I am not aware that Tanesco owes Songas.”
Sources
privy to Tanesco’s dealings hinted yesterday that the state-owned power firm is
chasing a commercial loan that is to be guaranteed by the government. The loan,
to be secured from an international bank, will facilitate payment of arrears to
all creditors.
Yesterday,
Mr Ford admitted knowing about Tanesco’s financial difficulties and the reason
why the firm had been unable to pay Songas recently. He added: “We have continued to operate, though, and
are hoping to be able to keep doing so.”
Songas
has kept its plant running in the hope that the situation would improve and TANESCO
would pay up. “Unfortunately, it hasn’t
and we very soon need to pay for our maintenance activities to ensure we can
keep running reliably,” said Mr Ford.
If
the firm does not receive enough funds to manage and maintain its gas
processing and transportation facilities, TANESCO will need to replace natural
gas with the much more expensive liquid fuel for its generating plants.
“Clearly,
this will make TANESCO’s already difficult financial situation even worse,”
said the Songas CEO, “and so we are working with TANESCO and asking them to pay
us as quickly as they can.”
“We do hope that TANESCO and the Government
are able to resolve this difficult situation,” Mr Ford added. “We want to be
able to operate our facilities and provide reliable service though we need to
be able to maintain them in order to do so safely and dependably.”
Source: The Citizen,http://www.thecitizen.co.tz, reported by Mkinga Mkinga
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