How TBA gears for housing development schemes in Tanzania

TANZANIA Building Agency (TBA) has constructed a total of 955 government houses worth Tshs. 37.7 billion between 2002 the time the agency was inaugurated up to December 2008. In total, the agency has constructed over 2000 houses countrywide for other commercial and renting purposes. It has been learnt. Within the period under review, TBA has spent a total sum of Tshs. 5.3 billion for renovation and repair of its head quarter office building located along Sokoine Drive opposite Karimjee Hall in Dar es Salaam. Within the said period, TBA has rented its 584 houses to public servants, and it has collected the sum of Tshs. 9.4 billion, the amount it has received from property tax of its commercial compartments and other houses hired by the public servants in the country. This information is contained in TBA’s annual implementation report prepared for the parliamentary infrastructure committee members amnd which was issued in mid of January 2009 According to the report, in the period under ereview, TBA has succeeded to sell its houses to some public servants who had fulfiled the legal procedures introduced by agency’s administrative board members that requires them to settle their debts up to December 2008. The report says that TBA expects to collect an estimated amount of money amounting to Tshs. 57.1 billion in ten years to come since the start of this exercize. Since the sale of government houses started in 2002, a total of about Tshs. 40.1 billion has been collected as up to December 2008. The amount collected is equivalent to 70 percent of the total sales, whereas the debt owned is Tshs. 17 billion which is equivalent to 29 percent. Debts the agency owes to its customers are required to be settled within four years’ time or before a customers’ retirement depending on their job contracts.

A newly constructed commercial house for TBA in Kinondoni district, Dar es Salaam region.

Together with the total house sales, 473 public servants have not yet fulfilled their contract laid down procedures due to various reasons whereby the values estimated for their houses is Tshs. 1.7 billion Following the sales accrued from these houses, a total of 2,764 workers have finished to pay their debts from the house loan they had taken. Since its establishment in 2002, the agency has been consistently issuing consultancy services to less than 294 projects in the country. Out of these, more than 142 projects are complete whereas the rest are still in various steps of its implementation. The agency has collected a total of Tshs. 7.8 billion as consultancy fees from its clients since 2002 up to December 2008. Either the agency is still owes its clients a total sum of Tshs. 1.4 billion which has not been paid up to now, though the fee notes as well as the Government Bills have been sent to them several times. In another development, most TBA’s buildings have been designed to cope with the disabled need by placing special raised stairs known as RAMP including lifts, special levatories for the sake of use of disabled persons. The agency is primarily concerned with the issuance of building permits for government houses and providing consultancy services to the government on all matters concerning with the procurement of government tenders and their buildings by following the laid down regulations governing procurement procedures as indicated in Procurement Act No. 21 of 2004. For the last three years, the agency has issued 83 legal permits to government offices, and other 62 permits to public servants who were sold government houses. A total of 145 permits have so far been issued to increase the agency’s revenues to the sum of Tshs. 1.4 which has bere accounted for the scrunity fee. The revenue estimates attained by Tanzania Building Agency (TBA) since its inauguration has been showing an annual tremendous increase from Tshs. 3.9 billion in 2002 to Tshs. 16.0 billion for the financial year 2008/09. This is an increase of 412 percent. The revenue attained came from three major sources of income, and these are the main projects the TBA currently engaged with. They include, the sale of the agency’s houses, House rent collected from houses which belonged to the agency and which has been hired to government employees, and revenues attained from other commercial houses rented to the general public including businessmen who are able to pay rent. Other income from which TBA attains its money from the work it does includes the consultancy fees. This is the money the agency receives from the technical advice administered by the TBA in all matters related to building and construction works in general with specific targets to the government houses and their institutions. Either, the specific revenue collections in general have been increasing annually from Tshs. 3.6 billion in 2002 to Tshs. 13.3 billion in the financial year of 2008/09. This is an increase of approximately 368 percent. Since its inauguration seven years ago, TBA has been preoparing a strategic implementation program of its regular responsibilities every year. This program and action of plan comes from a strategic five year plan which was prepared immediately after its inauguration. The action plan is being implemented in due regard of the annual expenditure estimates which are normally prepared depending on the types of works already in pipeline throughout in a concerned period of the financial year. According to the report, the agency’s budget estimates of the expenditure has been increasing year after year whereby in the 2002/03 financial year, the budget estimates was Tshs. 3.7 billion, compared to Tshs. 15.8 for the 2008/09 financial year. There has been an increase of Tshs. 12.0 billion on the part of its expenditure. Either, an average of a true expenditure has been growing year after year to Tshs. 11.4 billion for the financial year ending June 30th 2008. The report shows that, when TBA was inaugurated it started with the true expenditure with Tshs. 4.6 billion. Currently there has been an increase of a true expenditure of Tshs. 6.8 billion. The constant increase of the financial expenditure has been moving parallel with the implementation of various responsibilities assigned by TBA. Some of these responsibilities are the construction of government leaders’ houses and those of the ordinary surbodinates, the renovation works on these houses, the purchase of the furnished household materials to be installed in various government’s leaders houses, the purchase of permanent properties and other related TBA operations activities.