THE government has said nearly 6,000 villages will be connected with electricity through the Rural Energy Agency (REA) phase three.
Deputy Minister for Energy and Minerals,
Dr Medard Kalemani, told a parliamentary committee on Energy and
Minerals when giving details of the implementation of REA budget in
2016/2017 fiscal year.
The deputy minister said the
implementation of the third phase would kick off after the end of phase
II at the end of June this year and that about 6,000 are expected to be
connected with electricity.
“We expect to implement the third phase in three years and we expect to spend 1.5trillion/- in the project,’’ he noted.
According to Dr Kalemani the government
is struggling to distribute electricity in rural and urnab areas in its
bid to make sure that 85 percent the country’s population has access to
electricity.
“Electricity distribution in rural areas
has now reached 89 percent and all villages that were not covered
during the second phase would be incorporated in the third phase which
is final,’’ he added.
The deputy minister asked stakeholders
to provide information of the villages that are yet to be connected to
Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) offices. According to him,
some engineers who did not perform well during the second phase would
not be considered in the next phase instead the government would
contract others.
Earlier, on REA Director General Dr
Lutengano Mwakahesya said the second phase of REA targeted to supply
electricity in the headquarters of 13 districts. The districts are
Buhigwe, Busega, Chemba, Itilima, Kakonko, Kalambo, Kyerwa, Mkalama,
Mlele, Momba, Nanyumbu, Nyasa and Uvinza.
According to him, only MombaDistrict was yet to be connected to the national grid.
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