Tanzania in total darkness after nationwide blackout
….As govt’ kicks against tariff hike
The inability of the Tanzanian government to concede to the demands of the country’s electricity board to raise tariff has led to further breakdown of power supply in the country.
However, Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO), the supply company said on Thursday that it was working to normalize the situation which left households and businesses without power.
Agency report said that, TANESCO confirming the incident on Thursday said in a Swahili tweet that: “there has been an error on the national grid and thus caused blackout to all the regions that were connected to its power supply.
Efforts continue to re-establish the electricity (supply).”
Tanzania’s power generation mix blends hydro, natural gas and heavy fuel oil to generate electricity. Like in most African nations, there are incidents of partial blackouts which occur due to minor faults.
T will be recalled that in January 2017, President John Pombe Magufuli fired head of Tanesco after the outfit hiked tariffs by 8.53%. The president said the hikes would stunt his plans to industrialize the east African country. He went ahead to order a reversal of the move.
The power firm had initially sought an 18.19 percent tariff increase to arrest a loss-making trend and clear debts to independent power producers and fuel suppliers. The energy regulator however approved 8.53 percent which was less than half of what the utility said it needed to stem losses.
About 40 percent of Tanzania’s population of around 50 million has access to electricity and the government is aiming to push that rate up to 75 percent by 2025.
Since coming into office in 2015, Magufuli – referred to as the bulldozer – has sacked dozens of public officials as part of an anti-corruption campaign and a new drive to root out government inefficiency.
TANESCO has been unsuccessfully seeking loans from the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and commercial lenders to turn the company round.
Despite reserves of over 57 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas, Tanzania has been facing chronic power shortages over the past decade due its reliance on drought-prone hydro-power dams.
