Tanesco is now showing a promising future

Maybe it’s my inborn trait that I am too stringent to give credit or shower praises but when and where it is deserved it should not be withheld.

Just a few years ago, even in areas covered by the national electrical grid, power was often unreliable, on average power was unavailable for about 80 days in a year.

There were frequent power outages and I lost many electrical appliances. The power woes discouraged foreign investment, stunted the growth of domestic companies and discouraged foreign firms from setting up manufacturing plants in the country.

This was the Tanesco that I knew and hated and I had to install solar panels in my home just to get rid of Tanesco, but now I understand things have turned around.

There is no power rationing, electricity is available all the time bearing a few and short blackouts, outages are also to the minimum and for the first time in the history of Tanzania, Tanesco has shown financial viability.

This is the reason why today I decided to give credit to all the workers and management of Tanesco, this also includes Ministry of Energy.

I think this positive outlook should be supported and the debate that Tanesco is too big and should be divided into power generation company and a different company for distribution should be stalled.

Lets give some more time, space and support to Tanesco to become even more efficient. It should be noted that there is a strong relationship between the energy sector and the national economy, thus Tanesco has a huge responsibility.

The ultimate goal of poverty reduction cannot be achieved if Tanesco does not play its part, to supply reliable and affordable power.

There are many stakeholders in the process to reduce poverty but Tanesco cuts across and touches all the stakeholders, it has an important central role, any mismanagement, inertia or lethargy will be disastrous.

There are still some enormous challenges and I think the current management should address these as outlined.

First the electricity tariff (cost or price per kWh) is too high and if this is not reduced we will fail to utilize the generated electricity. We are paying almost five times more compared to Ethiopia (we are paying $0.14 while in Ethiopia the cost is $0.03). So this is the biggest challenge and I wish I could suggest ways to reduce the tariff but I am not the expert so I will leave the experts of Tanesco to work on this.

The next challenge is the depilated infrastructure that needs in some cases replacement and maintenance. Due to the past operational malfunction the infrastructure was hardly maintained. A stitch in time saves nine is the old saying applicable to the infrastructure challenge.

The world is moving towards clean and renewable energy source. We have plenty of sunshine, wind, geothermal but these are still very expensive to exploit and with the current technology available it cannot replace hydro or gas energy.

However there should be strategic plan about alternate sources. Again I leave it to the experts to look at the integrated approach.

Tanesco also had its fair share of corrupt workers and this may have decreased but there is still corruption and the management should not become complacent.

There is definitely a need to generate more electricity since the need is high with population growth and ongoing development.

Coverage has also to increase. The Tanesco management should be on top of this and expansion should be proportional to the needs. Availability has generally only reached wealthy, urban middle class, and commercial sectors, bypassing the region’s large rural populations and urban poor, thus the added responsibility is to supply power to this marginalized population.

I am somehow convinced that the management has a strategic plan and all this is well articulated but there is very little public awareness about what Tanesco is doing.

This disconnect with the public is perhaps because of the monopoly the company has which is a privilege and may change anytime.

In any growing economic private sector and other players will come in thus even if there is monopoly Tanesco should strive to keep its customers well informed, treat your customer as kings which is lacking at this time.

In conclusion Tanesco should seriously increase access to affordable energy services, improve energy governance, stimulate economic growth, manage energy-related environmental impacts, and ensure security of supply through diversification. Meanwhile kudos Tanesco you are doing a good job.

Zulfiqarali Premji is a retired MUHAS professor. His career spans over 40 years in academia, research and public health.