Powercuts hurt industrial output

DAILY NEWS Reporter

TANZANIA Tobacco Processors Limited (TTPL) has requested the government to ensure there is availability of stable power from the national grid in order to reduce costs of production in processing factories as power rationing (outage) adds to the cost of production.

Speaking recently during the evaluation of the performance of the company for the 2015 season, the company’s Group Managing Director, Mr Mark Mason, said frequent power outage hinders the development of most industries in the country.

He said in TTPL’s case during power rationing the company has to use generators which increase the cost of production whereby instead of paying 300m/- in electricity bills per month the company has to pay an extra 173m/- in generator running costs per month.

“Power rationing is a challenge to industrialization. All efforts must therefore be geared towards achieving reliable energy if we are to fuel the economy effectively. On our part we are even planning to start using biomass energy to mitigate the challenge,” he said.

On Tobacco production and security of supply, Mr Mason said due to a number of reasons ranging from the global regulatory regime which affects export markets, there has been a tangible drop in the volume of tobacco purchased and processed.

In 2014 his Group bought 48,000 tonnes, while last year only 33,000 tonnes were bought compared to this year’s figure of less than 25,000 tonnes.

“Market dynamics are shifting. There are stringent requirements for compliance and mandatory long term sustainability programmes such as afforestation, good governance and these are the major challenges to overcome so as to qualify to be a supplier on the global market,” Mark added.

On ethics and staff welfare, Mark stressed the importance of embracing ethics and integrity at workplaces noting that the company’s core values can be summarized as working with integrity.

“Conduct business with integrity and handle information and the assets of the company with integrity,” he said.

He added that issues related to health and safety will receive enhanced focus going forward as they constitute an integral part of the Company’s operations. Everyone has a duty to take responsibility of his/her own health and safety as well as for the health and safety of others at workplaces, he said.