05 March 2013, Dar es Salaam – The Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited, TANESCO, is facing serious financial problems, according to reports.
It has, however, failed to collect some 78 billion shillings being outstanding bills owed by the government, public and private institutions.
Despite the financial mess, the power utility firm has assured customers that there were no plans to institute power shedding in the country.
Tanesco’s Acting Managing Director Eng. Felchesmi Mramba told reporters on
Monday that the outstanding debts do not include about 90bn/- that are current bills to customers urgently needed to sustain power generation, distribution and transmissions.
Despite the unpredictable general revenue situation according to him, the power utility firm was relatively on average existing capacity showing no plan to supply power on rationing arrangement as feared by many.
“It is true we are operating on losses but we are trying to maintain the existing production capacity and avoiding power rationing at any cost,” he said. The company has since embarked on a debt collection mission to boost its coffers.
He said for the last four days some power cuts were reported in different areas in the country because of the ongoing rehabilitations in a number of plants and stations to do away with unstable power production systems.
Although he was uncertain to precisely state when the country will be able to produce enough power, he was certain on the current production which now stands at 750 MW and 850 MW during peak hours.
