The Minister for Energy and Minerals, William Ngeleja on Sunday, Augast 4th, this year (2011) summoned a press conference in Dar es Salaam and announced that beginning Tuesday, August 6th this year, 137.5 megawatts would be injected into the national grid.
The minister said the move would greatly help in reducing, quite considerably, the present power rationing in the country.
Of course, Ngeleja’s news was a good piece of information, especially coming at a time when power rationing is not only a nuisance, but has literally reduced the country’s economy into shambles!
Unfortunately for Tanzanians, this is not the first time that they are being told what in all intends and purposes appears to be a good news and by the same person.
For the same man who had chosen Sunday as a day for breaking out his news, is the same man who was once quoted by the media as saying that power rationing would sooner than later be history!
That was many months back and the rest, as they say, is history; for Tanzanians have not only been subjected to untold power outages.
But until the minister came up with the latest development, there have been all signs that it was just a matter of time before the country plunged into total darkness!
Since the minister’s dramatic press conference, has the projected 137.5 megawatts brought any changes to the country’s power outages?
The truth is the situation has grown from bad to worse, and as far as Dar es Salaam residents are concerned, the minister’s announcement has turned out into another hoax!
Therefore when the parliamentary of the energy committee, Mr January Makamba a few days ago said that he doubted the ministry’s ability to solve the power crisis as it had promised, he was confirming what most Tanzanians had long feared!
Yet when one looks back over problems Tanzania has been going through, as far as power is concerned, we would not have been where we are had the ministry not interfered in the Tanzania Electric Supply Company’s work.
Indeed, it would be recalled that it all happened when it became apparent that the country required a stopped gap measure in its power supply following prolonged drought that reduced, quite considerably, Tanzania’s hydro fired power.
Instead of leaving the job of getting fuel or gas fired power plants to the experts as represented by Tanesco, the ministry brought on board a briefcase company by the name of Richmond which at the end of the day failed to deliver!
And as if that was not bad enough, the fake company handed its ‘business’ to another, equally dubious company, Dowans, hence marking the start of power woes in the country!
That was not the end of the story. Later Tanzanians were told that Dowans had been bought by an American company, and before the Tanzanian world knew what was going on, US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was in town in connection with the new energy owners!
And suddenly local journalists who had turned Dowans into a whipping dog, elected to keep mum over who had pocketed American money after selling Dowans!
Since then, power blues appear to have come here to stay, and it would require an intelligent, focused and very committed leader to take Tanzania out of its present mess.
The power mess Tanzania is presently locked in can be likened to what the former minister for finance during the first phase government, Mr Amir Jamal, once told a Tanzanian journalist.
Asked to comment on what he thought about Tanzania, Mr Jamal said, “the state of its economy could be compared to that of a truck that has sank in mud and was devoid of pressure in all its tires!”
And for the truck to get out of the mud, Jamal told his questioner, it would require to fill in the tyres with pressure before thinking hauling the truck from the mud it was stuck in!
Jamal who died and was buried in Canada over two decades ago was commenting on Tanzania’s state of the economy immediately after its war with Dictator Idi Amin Dada.
Mwalimu Nyerere had called on Tanzanians, immediately after the war, to brace up for eighteen months of hardship.
The professed eighteen months of hardship however, later turned out into a decade of economic hardship, forcing the government into the waiting hands of the International Monetary Finance, IMF!
One wonders what Mr Jamal would have said about Tanzania’s economy today had he been around!
It is important to raise Mr Ngeleja’s pronouncement because since he said what he said a few days ago, power rationing continues unabated!
When the energy and minerals minister spoke to the media three weeks ago, his pronouncement was couched in finality, ‘beginning tomorrow’ the nation will experience change in power supply…’
Unfortunately the nation is yet to experience the change apart from statements to the effect that the change is set to come gradually, according to a section of the media reports carried on Wednesday, August 7th 2011!
When the government, through Ngeleja spoke about power rationing becoming history in this country, it did not take long before the country was plunged into the most telling power outages in history.
For the first time in the country’s history, the nation was told about factories/companies that had decided to close shop on account of power rationing.
But just when the nation appears to be getting used to power woes, the minister responsible for energy and minerals comes up with a statement to the effect that there will be considerable reduction in power rationing in the country!
By Attilio Tagalile
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