Before the 2022 power blackouts, I viewed Tanzania’s electricity sector as just another example of inefficiency. But when the blackouts hit, the sporadic flickering of power signalled something more insidious. If Tanzania is to progress, we must overhaul the power sector.
Unlike past outages, the 2022 blackouts were unpredictable. Instead of a scheduled 10- to 12-hour cut, power came and went multiple times a day, defying logic. With my background in telecoms, I knew that maintenance follows predictable patterns—no competent engineer allows a network to behave like a faulty switch. These erratic fluctuations pointed to a deeper, systemic issue.
