Tanesco just can`t alter costs of power unilaterally, says Govt

Energy and Minerals Deputy minister William Ngeleja

The government yesterday ruled out the Tanzania National Electricity Supply Company (Tanesco`s) plan to alter the cost of power services without its consent.

The State wants the power utility firm to seek approval from the Energy and Water Regulatory Authority (Ewura) when making adjustments on costs of its services.

Energy and Minerals Deputy minister William Ngeleja said this in the on-going Dodoma Parliamentary session yesterday when responding to a question posed by Mtutura Mtutura (Tunduru, CCM).

Mtutura had wanted to know that if the task of Tanesco was generating and supplying electricity to clients, why was it subjecting customers to pay for the construction of service lines which ended up as a property of the firm.

The MP had also sought to know who owned the service line which was constructed and funded by a client.

Ngeleja said that there were no changes in regulations governing operations of Tanesco, saying that the government has formed Ewura to, among other things, act as a watchdog on oil and energy services, including electricity.

He said that among the services provided by Ewura is to ensure that costs which the customer is told to pay is associated with the actual costs of accessibility of service.

`Therefore honourable Deputy Speaker, Tanesco can not change the cost of its services without studying the actual expenses on a particular service and without getting permission from Ewura,` he told the House.

On who owns a service line built from costs sharing between Tanesco and a client, the deputy minister said the service line belongs to Tanesco.

However, Ngeleja said that the service line could be the property of the customer if he would accept to pay operational and maintenance costs for the entire period which the client would be using electricity.

The House also heard that Tanesco had announced new costs for service line construction effective from November 1 this year.

According to the minister the costs `are 469,379/-, up from approximately 200,000/- for single phase for clients using pre-paid option called LUKU and 414,569/- for client using programmable poly phase meter (PPM).`

He said: `The actual cost for a three phase service line is 938,522/- for LUKU clients and 1,065, 735/- for PPM clients.`