THE newly appointed Energy Minister, Dr Medard Kalemani,
has pledged to increase power production from the current 1,400 megawatts to
5,000 megawatts by 2020 as part of efforts to accelerate the industrialization
drive in the country.
Dr Kalemani made the pledge in Dar es Salaam yesterday
when he met and held discussions with members of the Tanzania Electric Supply
Company Limited (TANESCO) Board of Directors, the staff and its subsidiary
companies to reveal his efficiency-enhancement strategies.
“The country needs to have sufficient power supply which
will support Industrialization; therefore we need to come up with strategies
for ensuring that the goal is achieved by the year 2020,” said Dr Kalemani.
Among his other plans include setting up reliable
infrastructure that will support production and transmission of electricity to
the 400Kv network. He furthermore revealed his intention to ensure that every
home in the country had access to electricity in the next three years,
declaring: “Our intention is to relegate power outages to history”.
The minister sketched a plan for settling all outstanding
debts that TANESCO was owed. Dr Kalemani observed that their current plan was
to establish an E-payment system to facilitate collection and tracking of debts
and customer bills through the country.
Last month, the then Dep uty Minister for Energy and
Minerals, Dr Kalemani, ordered a countrywide audit to establish the loss of
electricity over a three-month period up to November. “We expect to receive a
report which will give us a clear picture of the problem and expose the
culprits… serious measures will be laid down to officials responsible in the
deception,” he said.
The minister also pledged to deal firmly with power
thieves, including taking legal measures against them. He furthermore spoke of
plans to establish centres in wards and divisions in the country, to enable
people in rural areas with limited means to be easily connected to electricity.
“I am urging community members to follow the right
procedures when seeking power connections to their homes… don’t expose
yourselves to middlemen who are out to prey on you,” he advised, adding:
“TANESCO has made sure that no one pays any kind of application fees, other
than installation charges."
Source: Daily News TZ