Africa-Press – Tanzania. PRIME Minister, Kassim Majaliwa yesterday ordered the Minister for Energy, Dr Medard Kalemani to extend the 10 days suspension of three Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) officials to indefinite period till investigations would be completed.
Equally, he instructed that stern measures be taken against any staff, who in one way or another was involved in the recent countrywide outage that persisted for three days without valid explanation.
Elaborating, the Prime Minister reminded the company management and Board of Directors that the whole nation depends on them for power supply, adding that any mess-up disrupts business and denies the State its revenue.
“There should be a backup in the system to step in and rescue the situation should there be an interruption,” he said.
The three officials who were suspended on Wednesday included the utility’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) manager Lonus Feruzi and business service department two assistants Frank Mushi and Idda Njau.
In a meeting he held yesterday with the Management and Board of Directors of TANESCO at the company’s former headquarters in Dar es Salaam, the Premier directed that the trio be suspended for indefinite period and only to be reinstated once cleared by the investigation team.
“We should learn to be responsible, it is compulsory to inspect our equipment and system every day to ensure that the service is available at all times,” he pointed out.
He added: “I extend the suspension from 10 days and there are chances that more might be involved in this mess…I therefore, direct the Minister to continue with the investigation.”
Stressing, Mr Majaliwa directed TANESCO to make sure that they install backup system(s) that addresses any abrupt outage or looming systemic power failure.
“You created a big inconvenience to the nation and I wonder why you did not set up a backup system? It is very important to have a supporting system in case of any system failure,” advised the Premier.
He further said that the government is focused to ensure that there is a constant supply of power throughout the country, adding that it has efforts in place to strengthen power sources.
On his side, Dr Kalemani apologised to the public for the outage addressing it as a technical fault that caused chaos for three consecutive days.
He added: “I have already ordered our Permanent Secretary to form a special taskforce to review the whole system and come up with supporting ideas on how to improve the situation.”
In the mess, Tanesco clients failed to purchase electricity through their mobile phones or banks between Monday and Wednesday due to the technical hitch in the system.
In quick intervention, apart from assuring the public that efforts were being made to revive the system, Tanesco management advised the customers to access the service from its district and regional offices in the country.
“While our technicians are working to fix the challenge, we are asking for patience from all our customers. The public will be updated as soon as the problem is fixed,” said the Tanesco Managing Director, Dr Tito Mwinuka.
Giving detail, he said three out of their four machines used to process electricity tokens faced a technical hitch, forcing the fourth one to shoulder the burden of running the entire system.
The mess forced the Deputy Minister for Energy, Stephen Byabato to apologise to the public in Parliament, saying Tanesco technicians are working on it and that by evening on Wednesday, the problem would be solved.
He made the statement while responding to a question from a lawmaker, Cosato Chumi (Mafinga Urban-CCM), who sought to know the government’s action following the problem that is depriving Tanesco revenue and hampering economic activities of the public.
