Daniel Terungwa
GEITA Regional Commissioner, Rosemary Senyamule has said the grid connection to the Geita Gold Mine Limited (GGML) is underway with the construction of the special lines going to the mine reaching 90 per cent.
The move comes after the completion of a project to build a large Mpomvu power station located in Geita City with a capacity of 90 Megawatts.
The RC made the statement recently in Geita following reports triggered by social media that the Tanzania Electricity Supply Corporation (TANESCO) had failed to deliver the electricity needed by the investor Geita Gold Mine.
Elaborating further, Senyamule said in the case of the Mine (GGML) they are in the process of constructing a Kilovolt 33 emission power station to be 11 Kilovolt within a 40 Megawatt GGML mine.
“GGML uses a different voltage level than that distributed by TANESCO so we expect all operations until December 2022 to be completed,” he said.
The GGML mine uses more than 40 MW produced using diesel fuel generators since 2018. However, TANESCO’s plans have been implementing the Mpovu project to ensure it delivers more than 20 MW of electricity to the mine.
The Mpomvu substation, which covers an area of about five hectares, will receive 220 Kilovolt and supply 33 kilovolt and will benefit 11 villages affected by the project and 1,424 residents nearby the mine.
Neighboring regions such as Mwanza and Kagera will also benefit from the electricity. The massive project has cost more than 50bn/- to enable the people of Geita Region and surrounding areas to have reliable and affordable electricity.
The Commissioner said that upon completion of the Geita Power Station, it will enable the region to have reliable electricity that will attract various investments in the area.
For its part, the GGML Company has confirmed that the process of expanding the paraphernalia of transformers is in the process of procurement and construction of the facility is expected to be completed by November 2022.
The company’s vice president, Simon Shayo, said GGML had finalized the negotiations and drafted a power selling agreement with TANESCO to ensure the company had access to reliable and quality electricity to avoid disrupting production activities.
