DESPITE increase of the electricity power tariffs by a
National Power Utility firm (TANESCO) effective this month, pre-paid customers
of such a precious commodity have experienced problem of buying electricity
units and other services at various vending stations in the city of Dar es
Salaam, the survey by this blog can reveal. A week long survey carried out by
this paper in various vending stations in the city since Monday last week witnessed
a number of customers who got stranded in public halls at the customer service counters
of various vending stations pondering over what to do as an alternative move. Reliable
information made available to customers including the writer of this news had
it stated that there has been a consistent problem of the failure of internet
server at the main Ubungo head office along Morogoro road in the city resulting
into imminent disconnections, and that the technicians were busy working to
sort out the impending problem. Following this, customers have been duly
informed to wait as there were no services rendered at such unlikely time of
the day as technicians were working on the issue which could take long time to
be finished. The situation had prompted the waiting customers who some of them were
in a hurry and resort to leave the vending areas as they might have wasted
their time in order to meet other appointments for the day. Report was relayed
to them that, there has been a problem of the network in staffs’ working
computers as the main server from the head office at Ubungo had broken down causing
inconveniences in all vending stations in the city. Up to Thursday evening,
only few people could get their units sold to them as the computers at vending
stations worked by guessing at a time whenever a connection comes unexpectedly
giving a wave of expectations to the waiting customers who stood in a queue for
long. This reporter witnessed a loud murmuring of disbelief from the rowdy
customers who gathered at Ilala vending station along Samora Avenue at the
heart of the city with some of them complained that had no electricity now for
two days and had had no alternative to do.
Ezekiel Sichalwe, who seems to be a
house boy of one of the prominent businessman in the city, said that, his
employer told him to wait until at a time when the server would be restored to
allow connection which could résumé the services. He noted that, his boss was
not ready to sleep in darkness (that was on Thursday) as all he had expected to
make his things move was the presence of the electricity around his house. Contacted
for comments, a senior official from the customer care office at the centre who
preferred anonymity said that, such sudden disconnections occurs and there are
no alternatives except to wait as technicians are working to solve the matter. However,
he said that, failure of the server at the main office is primarily caused by
lack of electricity emanating from power blackout in the building, but could
not specify why such a blackout should occur to TANESCO when asked. Efforts to
reach the TANESCO’s Public Relations Manager Badra Masoud proved futile as the
reports from her secretary said that she was on annual leave. But her close aid
Adrian Severine who had admitted of the impending situation and said in a
telephone interview on Thursday evening that, the inconveniences are due to low
bandwidth the control room at the head office is experiencing at the moment but
the technicians were working to solve the matter. However, he could not specify
when or at what time the work would be finished but noted that would not take
longer. Citing another reason, he stated that the problem was caused by a
technical fault which had occurred after a main wire was stolen at Ubungo power
sub-station machine an aspect that caused some sensitive parts in the machines to
explode and got burned. Investigations by this paper can reveal that, as up to
yesterday (Friday) afternoon, some vending stations had not yet recovered back
their operation to normalcy.
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