Over one million villagers are expected to be connected to electricity services in the coming five years during the implementation of phase three of the Rural Energy Agency (Rea) project.
According to Rea acting director general, Boniface Nyamo-Hanga the government will spend a total of Sh7 trillion to implement the project.
Over 7873 villages will be connected to electricity services through the project.
Mr Nyamo-Hanga said that Sh4 trillion will be spent on electrifying villages that have never been connected to electricity services.
The remaining Sh3 trillion will be used to connect customers in villages where there are electricity infrastructures.
He said that the funds for implementation of the project will come from the government development budget to be raised from annual levy on petroleum products as well as from development partners.
Mr Nyamo-Hanga said a total of 7,697 villages will be connected to the national grid while 176 villages will be connected to other electricity sources.
According to him, the government has set aside a total of Sh534 billion from this year’s budget to start the implementation of the project.
“The implementation of phase three officially starts today (yesterday). We have floated a tender for local and foreign contractors wishing to implement the project to bid,” said Mr Nyamo-Hanga.
He called on local contractors to bid for the implementation of the project, saying it will be carried out in three phases.
The first phase will include connecting people from villages, where there is no electricity infrastructures, while the second will involve underlining of transformers in order to connect many people where there is electricity grid, according to Mr Nyamo-Hanga.
He said the third would include connecting people in Islands to other sources of power.
He added that all projects under the agency will be implemented by private contractors through Turnkey procedures under supervision of Rea, Tanesco and Trust agent.
He restated that the government will make sure about 85 per cent of Tanzanians are connected to electricity services come 2021, as well as making sure that all Tanzanians are connected to power services by 2030.
He urged communities to collaborate with Rea to ensure it successfully implements the project instead of sabotaging its infrastructures as was the case in some areas.
For his part, director for Policy Planning Research Prosper Msellem said they have noted that some villages have a large number of residents and other social services He said added some of villages also delayed to received the power due number of issues such as approval from Tanesco as agency their responsibility is only to support infrastructure.
Rea has established in year 2008 by responsibility of supply power in rural areas and it has been coordinated under Rural Energy Fund and Rural Energy Board with aimed at create and identify energy project in the villages.
A total of 4,395 villages out of 12,268 villages in the country have already been connected to power during the implementation of the phase one and two of Rea.