TEMDO to produce mini-mills to boost sugar production

DAR ES SALAAM: TANZANIA Engineering and Manufacturing Design Organisation (TEMDO) has come up with solution to increase sugar production using simple machines. TEMDO, thus, designed a minisugar processing plant with the capacity to crush 200 tonnes of sugarcanes a day to produce 20 tonnes of sugar.

To implement the idea TEMDO entered into an agreement with Sugar Board of Tanzania (SBT) to develop and promote simple but affordable small sugarcane milling technologies that will add value on addressing country’s sugar deficit.

TEMDO’s Director General Prof Frederick Kahimba said they have a capacity to manufacture about four mini sugar processing plants per year suitable for smallscale sugar producers—especially famers.

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“We want to bring changes and support the country on the way we produce sugar to avert spending money on sugar imports,” Prof Kahimba told ‘Daily News’ recently. TEMDO is currently manufacturing the first mini sugar plant worth 1.0bn/- in Arusha where SBT has injected slightly over half of the total costs.

The manufacturing of the plant has reached over 80 per cent and expected to go on production at the end of the year. The national sugar output was about 470,000 metric tonnes last year with domestic demand standing at 635,000 metric tonnes annually, creating a deficit of 172,100 metric tonnes every year.

The TEMDO head said under the agreement the country will increase the number of small sugar factories, increase employment, reduce the import of sugar and increase the government’s income.

The manufacturing of various parts of the mini-plant have reached various stages where vacuum pans are at 90 per cent, the hot water treatment plant is 97 per cent and the production of mini boilers is at 75 per cent. The remaining phase comprises of the manufacturing of condensate tank, boiling pans, syrup recirculating pans rotary vacuum filter, liming tank, mixer tank and syrup tank.

TEMDO is among a few government entities that for three years now their reforms have made them to operate themselves by creating sustainable sources of their revenues without depending on the government coffers. Recently, President Samia Suluhu Hassan called for carrying out drastic reforms on government enterprises so that they operate as public entities.

The reform will enable the entities to fulfil the goals for which they were established by allowing Tanzanians to buy shares from the government agencies and institutions, a move that will keep them afloat, according to the President.

TEMDO is an applied engineering research and development institution went into operation in July 1982, headquartered at Njiro Hills in Arusha.

The major establishment objective of TEMDO was to design, adapt and develop machinery and equipment and to promote their commercial manufacture and use.

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