Thieves stole over 100 metres of electricity cables after cutting down three poles from the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) service line along Arusha-Moshi Road, plunging three townships and the Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) into darkness.
The massive destruction on part of the main northern power-line has been confirmed by police here and is reported to have occurred Wednesday night, resulting in extensive damage likely to remain unrepaired until next weekend, though the process to rescue the situation has just started.
The Regional Manager for TANESCO, Engineer Genes Kakore, explained here that unknown people used chainsaws to cut down three electricity poles, located 100 metres apart, at a section known as Usa-Majarubani, along the Arusha-Moshi highway.
Affected areas include the Usa-River, Maji-ya-Chai and Kikatiti townships of Meru District in Arusha Region as well as the KIA, the KIA road junction hamlet and Boma-Ng’ombe township in Kilimanjaro Region.
What saved the international air port is the fact that the Kilimanjaro Airports Development Company runs an automatic power generator at KIA, but businesses along the main highway have adversely suffered since Wednesday night.
Ms Sophia Marmo who runs a stationery and secretarial service outlet in Usa-River township said her business is currently closed down due to the power outage while pubs and restaurants owners along the road complained of their food stocks kept in refrigerators going bad.
The TANESCO Regional Manager stated that it is rather tricky to instal new pillars to replace the chain sawed ones, because the area consists of water-logged soil used as paddy farms.
“Digging into the wet ground to place new posts will be very difficult as it entails draining and possibly filling up the place with new sand and soil,” explained Eng. Kakore, adding that TANESCO will incur a 50 mil/- loss in the process including lost revenues from the power service outage.
The vandalism targeted copper cables and culprits managed to get away with more than 100 metres, while damaging other aluminum wires that got destroyed in the process though the thieves did not take them.
By MARC NKWAME, Tanzania Daily News
