TANESCO for concrete poles

KATARE MBASHIRU in Bagamoyo

RURAL Energy Agency (REA) and Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) plan using concrete poles in electrification of rural and urban areas in the next few months.

REA Acting Director General Gissima Nyamo-Hanga said here yesterday that the government, through the agency, has invested heavily in rural electrification projects, charging that the agency was now exploring new strategies to implement its third phase projects, which will require substantial amount of poles. Engineer Nyamo-Hanga was speaking during a tour of the newly established East Africa Infrastructure Engineering Limited.

The REA boss and TANESCO Managing Director Felchesmi Mramba had visited the company to observe the pole quality and assess the firm's capacity to meet the national demand for the materials.

“We have been using wooden poles but the technology is changing, and we need to make a thorough assessment to see if it will be prudent to use concrete poles in our coming projects,’’ said Engineer Nyamo-Hanga, noting that REA and TANESCO are visiting various pole producers, looking for the best materials that can provide reliable power in the country.

“We are doing cost-benefit analysis to see if we can ably use these poles because even the wooden poles that we have been using are not adequate...that is the reason we are visiting these factories to see how best we can work together to accomplish our projects,’’ he said.

Speaking at the company premises, Engineer Mramba said the REA's first phase post assessment had shown that the wooden poles that are currently in use were not good for reliable electricity supply, compelling the power firm to explore possible opportunities for concrete poles.

“We decided to visit this factory to see the quality of the poles that they manufacture because TANESCO has recently launched a project to invest in industries that can help it to ease the task of supplying electricity and the project is so far doing well,’’ said Engineer Mramba.Located at Kidomole area in Coast Region's Bagamoyo District, the company is a Spun Prestressed Concrete poles factory that started operations in 2015.

So far, according to the Assistant General Manager, Mr Johnspeter Majura, the factory has employed 71 Tanzanians. “Since the factory kicked off, we have produced 40,000 concrete poles but our capacity is to produce between 400 and 500 poles per day, depending on the order that we have received from our customers,’’ he said