Engineering Inefficiencies and Technical Dependency

This article examines how the construction of power infrastructure in the 1960s-1980s shaped the future functioning of the Tanzanian power grid from the 1990s. The article is based on oral sources and archival material collected from the Swedish National Archives in Stockholm, the Tanzania National Electric Supply Company Limited (TANESCO), the East Africana Section of the Wilbert Chagula Library at University of Dar es Salaam, the Rufiji Basin Development Authority (RUBADA) and the World Bank online sources. The article argues that engineering inefficiencies of some Western planners and builders of TANESCO’s power grid who failed to consider local ecological issues presaged future power outages which electricity users encountered from the 1990s. The situation was further complicated by the financial and technical assistance that Tanzania received during the planning and construction of its hydropower infrastructure from the 1960s to1980s as it augured technological dependency, thus hindering infrastructural maintenance and repair. The article concludes by contending that initial infrastructure planning and engineering were critical in the making of Tanzanian power failures which were later complicated by deferred repair and maintenance, ill-conceived electricity reforms, grid informalities, corruption and mismanagement of TANESCO.