Within five years, Tanzania is going to add a new page to the modern African history as its rural areas will have more power than its cities. This was announced by Tanzania’s minister of power and minerals, Sospeter Muhongo.

Noting that in most African nations, urban areas have more access to power than rural areas, the minister declared: “But in Tanzania within these five years, the story would be different”

The nation plans to achieve this through the rural electrification programme, combined with the industrialization programme which is carried out by the government to reduce poverty. Industrialization will in fact benefit rural areas.

“When we are planning industrialization, we also want our villages to use electricity in productive activities like agriculture, small-scale processing industries and business. By so doing, they will be able o produce more, get more profit and hence march out of poverty,” Muhongo declared.

The minister added that the central government plans to develop new power infrastructures to boost the network’s power and cut power costs. “We want to see the electricity tariff going down. We can't have an electricity company, which always seeks to up tariff; why don't they think of reducing the tariff. Through these efforts by the government, the tariff will keep on going down,” he promised

Gwladys Johnson