Tanzanian contractors told to boycott substandard building materials

TANZANIA has every reason to proud itself in maintaining a firm engineering works as since independence 50 years ago, the country has never had experienced serious house collapse compared to what has occurred in other East African states. In view of this, an appeal has been made to contractors and engineers to continue their stance by rejecting the suspected locally and imported manufactured sub standard building materials which are sold out by unscrupulous traders in the country. According to building and engineering experts, substandard building materials are the major cause of house collapse if used for construction. Their lifespan is shorter and hence have lower sustainability. The registrar of the National Engineers Registration Board (ERB) Engineer Steven Mlote gave the call early this week in Dar es Salaam that, “the continued boycott of the counterfeit building materials would effectively maintain our houses for a longer lifespan”. However, he has urged contractors of high storey buildings in the country to develop the habit of taking their building materials for testing in order to establish their durability and sustainability and quality as well. Engineer Mlote was contributing his comments during a live TV talk show in a program entitled “House is Life” which is aired at 21:00 hrs on every Monday by Star TV. The program is being conducted on behalf of the National Housing Corporation by a famous TV presenter Ephraim Kibonde. During the talk show, Engineer Mlote noted that, Tanzania has not had a bad record of house collapse since independence time, and that three serious incidences have ever happened in the country. “This is a significant outlook of the building sector for the history of house building in this country”. He said.

ERB Registrar Engineer Steven Mlote, addressing fellow engineers during one of the past ERB meetings with other stakeholders in Dar es Salaam However, he mentioned three minor disasters of the house collapse which have happened in the country which occurred in recent years within the last five years, with the latest one which happened at Kisutu in the heart of the Dar es Salaam city centre in 2008. Other incidences he mentioned happened in 1986 along Msimbazi near Kariakoo market, this was the worst ever to be recorded that claimed the lives of seven people. He also mentioned another disaster of house collapse which occurred in 2006 at Temeke and lost the lives of two people on the spot. According to Engineer Mlotte, the collapse of a house mostly occurs due to negligence of contractors and owners of buildings who prefers to use cheap building materials which are of the lowest quality an aspect that cannot sustain the foundation from the basement. On fire occurrences, such disasters occurs as most building owners ignores to hire electrical professionals to do their work more professionally for fear of high expenses incurred for wiring, and instead resort to cheap technicians the so-called 'Vishoka'. He has therefore urged the people in the country to get away with the notion of acquiring such cheap labour which ultimately costs them a lot. In view of this, he says that registered electrical engineers are the best people to hire for the work of wiring in order to avoid the impending any fire disasters.