MCHEZO MCHAFU WA KUTOKA RICHMOND,DOWANS HADI SYMBION WAWEKWA WAZI..... From Dowans to Symbion: Why the crusaders misled the nation BY EDITOR 7th July 2013 On March 15, 2009, The Guardian on Sunday published a front page story headlined, “What transpired”, in which we reported in clear terms that the proposal to buy the Dowans power generating plants wasn’t initiated by Kigoma North Member of Parliament Zitto Kabwe as claimed by the anti-Richmond squad led by Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, William Shellukindo and later, the former Speaker, Samuel Sitta. Our story which was sourced from a transcript of a meeting between the management of Tanesco led by former Managing Director Dr Idrisa Rashidi and the Parliamentary Committee responsible for state-owned corporations led by Kabwe, almost cost some of us our jobs. But, since we were dealing with truth, which had earlier been elusive because sections of the media maliciously reported that Tanesco’s proposal to buy Dowans’ plants was fuelled by bribes from some of the company’s shareholders. The media, quoting some self-styled anti-corruption crusaders made the public believe that it was Kabwe and his colleagues who convinced Tanesco to buy the Dowans’ plants. But in our search for the truth, we came across the damning evidence, which showed clearly that the proposal to buy the plants at Sh60 billion ($38 million) came from Tanesco’s top management. We established that after the termination of the contract between Tanesco and Dowans, the latter had precious little option but to remove its power generating plants from the state utility premises at suburban Ubungo. The firm (Dowans), then facing pressure from lawmakers as well as the general public, opted to sell the plants to Tanesco, instead of exporting the very same machines abroad. Before making any offer, Tanesco decided to invite an international firm to inspect the plants in order to establish whether they had value for money. The international firm conducted its due diligence and concluded the following: Both machines were able to functioning for the next thirty years, without any problem, provided the maintenance schedule was kept to the hilt by Tanesco engineers. Economically, at the price of about $38 million, this was the best deal ever considering the costly capacity charges Tanesco was paying independent power producers. Tanesco approached the then Minister for Energy and Minerals, William Ngeleja about the proposal to buy the plants. The Minister having been briefed about the deal, accepted it, but decided to consult hi boss, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda. When the premier was approached, he accepted the idea too, but also instructed Ngeleja to seek advice from the former Speaker, Sitta. Ngeleja briefed Sitta about the plan, and the former Speaker endorsed it, saying it was a brilliant idea. But, alas, before Ngeleja could officially authorize Tanesco to proceed with the deal, Sitta was in the media the very next day, warning the government not to buy the Dowans plants because such a decision would ignite anger among MPs in Parliament. Enjoying blind public support, Sitta, Mwakyembe, Shellukindo and, later Ole Sendeka led a spirited campaign against Tanesco’s bid to purchase the Dowans plants. The government, knowing what Richmond had already caused in terms of political casualties, backed off. But an angry Dr Rashidi, former Tanesco MD, warned that the country would be plunged into total darkness if politics continued to dominate the energy sector. We are all aware about what followed. To build their case, the group accused Kabwe of having been bribed $300,000 to support Tanesco’s bid to buy the Dowans plants. Kabwe responded decisively, saying he was acting with the best interest of the country at heart. By publicly supporting this deal, at the short-run, Kabwe was committing political suicide within and outside his party, though in long-run, he has now proved his accusers hopelessly wrong. When we published the story, we received some text messages accusing us of giving a platform to those who have been bribed to support the Dowans deal. Some text messages predicted that the editor would be fired for taking a stand that was against the so-called anti-Dowans crusaders. But we stood by our story because it was based on absolute truth. Perhaps our readers may ask why we are saying this now; it’s simple. The power plants that we barred Tanesco from buying were in 2011 purchased by American-based company, Symbion Corporation, at the cost of $100m, three times what Tanesco would have paid. Symbion has used those same plants to generate electricity, which it sells to Tanesco plus daily capacity charges of $150,000 (Sh246 million), since November 2011. These are the same plants which President Barack Obama visited early this week, and showered praise on the US utility firm for its initiatives to light Tanzania. If Tanesco was allowed to purchase these plants, we wouldn’t have paid the huge capacity charges as well as the cost of buying electricity from Symbion Corporation. The only cost we would have incurred as a nation would have the heavy furnace oil or gas needed to operate the plants. In the meantime, Tanesco still has another $100million legal suit to settle. What has irked many is that almost everyone stopped ‘demonising’ the Dowans plants the moment they were sold to the Americans, and the famous anti-Dowans crusaders now do not have the nerve to raise their objections in much the same way they did in 2009 -- perhaps for fear of possible defeat.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 04:46:48 +0000