Tanzania will need the sun to light up the nights.
The country intends to replace all grid electricity powered streetlamps in the country’s major towns and cities with environment friendly solar glimmers.
The aim is to cut down the running costs, ensuring constant power as well as promoting cleaner energy usage.
The country’s Minister for Works, Abdallah Ulega who was attending the Arusha Regional Board meeting in the Northern City, pointed out that solar lights were more reliable as the sun never runs out unlike electricity which usually goes off without notice.
Ulega used the occasion to issue the directive to all directors of urban districts, town councils and cities across Tanzania to start swapping street electric standard lamps with solar-powered light panels, especially automatic ones that can sense the dark and switch on themselves.
The Minister of Works was responding to the request filed by the Arusha Regional Commissioner, Paul Christian Makonda who had asked the central government to assist the Northern City, which is a hub of tourism and diplomatic relations in lighting up all its streets.
The Arusha Governor pointed out the importance of ensuring that the city is well lit during the night as his office was encouraging 24-7 business operations, wanting all offices, trading centers and other service provision entities to work around the clock.
He thus sent an official request to the Ministry of Finance and Planning so that the government may fund the street lighting project.
Reacting to that, Minister Ulega directed the Tanzania Roads Agency (TANROADS) and the Tanzania Rural Roads Agency (TARURA) to cooperate in ensuring that all the main streets and important roads in Arusha have been installed with automatic solar lamps.
Arusha is a city of nearly 600,000 residents, while not the biggest in Tanzania it is the second most important urban center in the country after Dar-es-Salaam, being both the headquarters of the East African Community and the portal into the country’s travel and tourism industries.
Arusha, at the base of Mount Meru, is also situated in close proximity with Nairobi, which is Kenya’s capital located less than 300 kilometers along the main tarmac road passing through the shared Namanga border.