gas in high demand in tanzania, page-5

The pressure is mounting for the government to act and to act fast!

And the only short term solution offered is natural gas! Something KEY has thanks to Kiliwani North.

And even if the dams fill back up again, with the growth in population, they won't be sufficient to meet the energy demands of Tanzania.

And this isn't even allowing for the pressure to build a gas pipeline from Tanzania to Kenya.


Heed team's call on generation of power

Power rationing is here with us again, having been introduced by Tanesco a couple of weeks ago. We have had it before. The troubles it causes to our lives and industry are a litany.

Our unreliable electricity supply has always been linked to Tanzania's singular reliance on hydro-power generation. When rains don't fall, as it is the case now, power supply diminishes dangerously.

We can't continue this way. It is of utmost importance that the country diversifies its sources of power generation.

As a matter of fact, this should have been in the minds of our planners yesterday, not today. Hydro-electricity power generation with most minimal alternatives to it has been our lot since the colonial times, and that is sad.

At independence Tanzania's population was hardly 9 million; now it stands at around 40 million. The bigger population has meant an increase in demand of electricity for domestic and industrial use.

The dams that were a source of power generation can no longer meet our needs.

Worse still, their water levels have been going down drastically over the years, mainly because of the wanton degradation of the environment, including the depletion of forest cover.

We, therefore, support the suggestion by the Parliamentary Committee on Energy and Minerals that the Government to immediately pursues alternative sources of generating electricity, such as gas.

As a member of the committee suggested, the Government should give priority to the utilising natural gas instead of focusing on power from dams alone. Given the abundance of natural gas in various areas, sourcing this resource would drastically increase Tanzania's electricity supply.

The move to implement the committee's proposals should be speeded up if Tanzania is to put behind it the scourge that is power rationing.


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