John Cheyo

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said yesterday that people settled at Mabwepande, northern outskirts of Dar es Salaam, moved from flood prone Jangwani, are yet to develop their plots despite generous government support.

The PAC members led by Chairperson Bariadi East legislator John Cheyo said they were shocked to find people still living in tents, nearly six months after they were relocated.

PAC Vice-Chairpersons Zainabu Vullu said the government spent more than 3.5bn/- to relocate people to Mabwepande.

“The government paid extra 1.98bn/- for construction, 672m/- for installing water and 964m/- for power but people are still complaining,” she told journalists in the city.

PAC called up on all relocated Mabwepande residents to work hard to develop their areas instead of waiting for the government to do every thing for them.

“We directed them to build a health centre considering that health services are far away, and stop waiting for government to serve them… the government has done enough and they should work for their future development,” Vullu said.

Meanwhile, the committee appealed to Dar es Salaam authorities to discuss with Mabwepande residents on the situation they are facing and how it can be improved.

On his part, a committee member Ally Mohamed Kessy, the Northern Nkasi MP, said the government has spent a lot of money to compensate some of the flood victims who refused to obey the government order.

“There are lots of places in Tanzania that lack water, hospitals and medicine,” Kessy reminded them.

Yahya Kassimu Issa, Chola MP, Zanzibar, said the service provided by the government to the flood victims has been good and the unique.

The committee advised Mabwepande residents to use building materials provided by good Samaritans like cement and iron sheets to build teachers’ houses in the area.

They also advised the government to send more teachers to Mapwepande primary school. So far the area has only 10 teachers.

In January this year flood victims who were staying in temporary shelters were relocated to their permanent settlement in Mabwepande.

Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Said Meck Sadick has said the ex-Jangwani residents are responsible for the construction of their houses.

According to Sadick, there are some 1,117 plots at Mabwepande village, which the government has divided into Blocks ‘A’ and ‘B’. He said plots on Block ‘A’ have already been surveyed and will be allocated.

People wishing to occupy plots on Block ‘B’ would also get land after the former owners are compensated.

Late last year, at least 40 people were killed by floods caused by heavy rains that lasted three days affecting thousands of city dwellers, especially those living in valley areas that were later relocated to Mabwepande.