Dar city is ashamed with chronic with uncollected filthy

Some key areas of the country’s Dar es Salaam Central Business District  had got back  again to unhygienic conditions, only a month after President Dr John Magufuli and Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa led the nation in a countrywide clean-up operation. Despite promises by local government leaders and business owners to make cleanliness a culture, major markets and streets remain full of garbage and the drainage systems are clogged more or less the same way they were before the December 9 exercise. A spot check carried in places like Kariakoo and Tandale markets in Dar es Salaam suburban has revealed that there are lots of uncollected filthy in these areas despite traders and local government leaders who swore in the presence of journalists’ cameras that will they never again allow garbage to pile up, have apparently failed to keep the promise. The survey at Kariakoo in particular which is the city’s biggest and busiest shopping suburb, where Prime Minister Majaliwa led the exercise on Independence Day, the situation is very pathetic although thrilled traders promised to embrace cleanliness has relapsed to its filthy and stench past. It’s blame game at the market as leaders complain about shortage of funds, while traders on the other hand accuse leaders of collecting fees from them daily without making any sanitation improvement and garbage collection in the market.  Interviewed health and hygiene manager at Kariakoo Donald Sokoni admitted that sanitation in the area as expected earlier has not improved enough. He detailed that, the market is currently experiencing a huge financial deficit to facilitate rehabilitation of its drainage systems to allow smooth flow of waste water. “The revenue which is collected in the market does not satisfy the entire market needs specifically on the rehabilitation of the infrastructures,” he explained. A huge percentage of the budget being collected from the market is allocated to staff salaries, health services, and payment to contractors, while the rest is forwarded to the government - the owner of the market.  “We made efforts to implement several orders given out by Prime Minister Majaliwa when he visited the market place, that included renovation of public toilets and to install an air cooling machine in the market,” he said. “However, we fail to proceed with other improvements for cleanliness due to budget constraints,” Donald said. 

Donald went on to say that, the market still relies on a single income source which is sales commission fee charged to traders daily…the amount which is not enough at all,” he said. According to him, the market collected about 458m/- in the last quarter from July to September last year, but the amount couldn’t enable the authority to carry out improvement of the infrastructure.  “The major challenges facing the market is the huge number of more than 120 employees - the number which consumes a substantial amount of budget collected from traders,” the manager detailed. He explained that; when they met with Prime Minister Majaliwa in December last year, he advised them to formulate Kariakoo Cooperate Market Board to help solve the existing challenges. For his part, Business Officer Vedastus Valentine said the market operates with a huge amount of levy that goes un collected from goods brought to the area. He said, the market was suspended from receiving huge trucks of crops weighing more than five tonnes as per the Tanroads order that restricts entrance of such vehicles to the facility. “This has reduced the capacity of levy collection in the market, and as a result the market currently operates under loss,” he explained. Commenting, potato trader Hamidu Salehe said there is slow pace on part of the management to adhere to the Prime Minister’s order on ensuring sustainable cleanliness. “They did a small cleaning for two to three days after the campaign was initiated just because they were pushed by the Prime Minister, but from that period onwards, the situation in the market has reverted to its previous state. “We cannot expect changes if we continue like this, we need to see strong mechanism that shall make leaders be accountable to their required duties,” lamented the trader. Bakari Alex, a banana trader said: “We have not yet witnessed changes on the improvement of hygiene in the market, despite the fact that we are charged a big fee daily unlike other markets in the city. Alex said, most traders in the market have stopped from operating business in the market due to the high amount of fees charged by the management. “Indeed, we are forced to upload our trucks to other market and pick little of the commodities to the Kariakoo Market,” he said, adding that it poses huge challenges to them.