THE Tanzania Electric Supply Company Ltd (TANESCO) plans to sign agreements with commercial banks for more people to access loans and connect power to their residential and business premises.

The Deputy Minister for Energy and Minerals, Mr George Simbachawene, told the House yesterday that apart from accessing loans for power connections, arrangements are afoot for customers to start paying power connection costs in instalments.

The arrangement if all goes well will be completed by January next year with some research currently going on how best the system can work. Mr Simbachawene was responding to a question asked by Mr John Mnyika (Ubungo-CHADEMA) who wanted to know government plans to introduce pre-paid electricity system as well as providing soft loans to customers who need to be connected.

The Deputy Minister said TANESCO and the Rural Energy Agency (REA) are still implementing a system that enables customers to be connected on subsidized costs by 50 per cent where customers are entitled to pay the costs in three instalments.

"The arrangement to include these charges on monthly invoice will only be possible if Tanesco reviews their billing system to accommodate that," he said.

Currently, he said, power connection charges have been reduced from 455,108/- to 177,000/- for rural residents with distance not exceeding 30 metres single phase while in urban areas the charges are now 320,960/-. Customers who need one pole for connection are required to pay 515,618 respectively from the previous charges amounting 1,351,884/-.
 

allafrica.com

Posted on : 30 Nov,-0001