Tanzania's sole electricity supplier has pronounced its intention to raise power tariffs by six percent so as to help offset operation costs, local press reported on Thursday.

English newspaper The Citizen reported that the Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (Tanesco) had applied to the country's Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority for a power tariff hike that will go into force in January next year.

Outgoing Tanesco Managing Director Adrian van der Merwe was quoted as explaining that the electricity supplier had been forced to increase the tariffs because of rising inflation.

Inflation in Tanzania rose to 6.0 percent in October compared with 4.2 percent in June last year, according to figures revealed by the Bank of Tanzania.

Increasing prices of petroleum products on international markets, increased costs of production in Tanzania and increased costs of electricity generation have combined to cause the inflation to move up.

In another development, power rationing has started to ease in Dar es Salaam as the repair of a 40-megawatt generator completed earlier this week.

The repair has enabled the Songa-Songa power plant to generate in full capacity to help ease the hitherto strict power rationing scheme that cuts off power supplies to Dar es Salaam residents and factories for almost half a day Monday through Friday every week.

Tanesco Public Relations Manager Daniel Mshana confirmed that power generation had improved considerably.

Lack of rainwaters during the last rainy season caused the water levels at the country's major hydropower dams to drop only to force the shutdown of several key hydropower plant operations.

The combined installed generation capacity of the hydropower plants in the country was 561 megawatts whereas the hydro-plants now only feed 78 megawatts into the national power grid.

The Tanzanian government and Tanesco have been striving to diversify the country's electricity generation, turning to gas-and coal-fired generators.

For the time being, the country is getting 320 megawatts from natural gas-fired generators and is planning to get 175 megawatts more of gas-generated electricity next year.

The country is also planning to generate 50 megawatts of electricity through coal-fired generators next year.

Source: Xinhua