The Tanesco managing director, Mr Felchesmi Mramba, said professional evaluations were considered before the power utility came up with the proposal to reduce its tariffs which continued hitting hard the ordinary people.
Dar es Salaam. The Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) yesterday refuted media reports that it was heading to collapse over its proposal to the industry regulator, the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (Ewura), to lower its power tariffs.
The Tanesco managing director, Mr Felchesmi Mramba, said professional evaluations were considered before the power utility came up with the proposal to reduce its tariffs which continued hitting hard the ordinary people.
He said the government had paid much of the money it owed the State-owned utility, stressing that there should be no need to worry.
Mr Mramba said the current tariffs were pegged when the country relied heavily on erratic hydropower plants as well as costly diesel-powered plants operated by independent power producers. Tanesco has presented a proposal to decrease power tariffs by 1.1 per cent, abolish service charges to household comsumers and remove form charges imposed on customers requesting for power connection to their houses.
Tanesco has also asked Ewura to approve a power tariff reduction of 1.1 per cent effective from April 1 this year, and a further cut of 7.9 per cent from January 1, 2017. Currently, customers are charged Sh5,520 monthly as service charges while Sh5,900 form fee is charged for customers seeking electricity connection. “Our experts have conducted evaluations before we came up with the recommendations, but Ewura also carries out its own evaluations before it approves the same,” he said.
Mr Mramba said the major reason behind the decrease in power tariffs was the country switching to gas energy.
