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Kariakoo Market needs urgent help
2007-12-12 09:33:15
By Editor
Reports that Dar es Salaam`s chief general market, Kariakoo, was meant to serve 150 traders when it opened its doors over three decades ago but now caters for about 30 times the number make alarming reading.
One of the first questions one feels like asking is what would happen to the thousands of people inhabiting, doing business in or commonly flocking to the area for other reasons in the event of, God forbid, an earth tremor or some other emergency.
The Kariakoo Market Corporation general manager is quoted as saying about half the traders in the area under their control are not registered and operate from makeshift structures without official recognition.
The market``s ever-swelling population has grown into a serious problem calling for an immediate solution if we are to avert disaster.
It is noteworthy that even the implementation of plans to put up additional ``satellite`` stalls as a way of absorbing the booming pressure on the market proper and its environs has failed to cope.
There is nothing odd in the fact that Kariakoo has been attracting as many businesspeople, customers and ``tourists`` as records show it has.
This is because it is normal for any really quality marketplace to become a crowd-puller - which could be a blessing or a curse, depending on how the development is handled.
In the case of Kariakoo, demand has long outstripped absorption capacity.
Worse still, plans to decongest the market by ensuring that each of the city`s three municipalities has at least one dependable market complex similar to the KMC one have been mooted for years but with implementation not yet in sight.
Under the present Government set-up, the Regional Administration and Local Government wing of the President`s Office is the corporation`s parent ministry.
However, the KMC authorities say they have not been getting any subvention from the government and have had to make do with their own options.
But it would be surprising if they found this awkward. This is because the government warned way back in the mid-1990s that it was intent on making sure that local government institutions, and KMC is one such, depended less on the central government and enhanced their capacity to run on their own and develop themselves.
While it may not be that proper for the central government to continue with its firm stand at this point in time when one of the country`s most popular business centres is under sure threat, those in charge at KMC should not merely complain that they have been abandoned or are overwhelmed.
They have enough experience and some of the resources needed to deal with adversity and weather the storm.
But if it so happens that the corporation has really scratched its head once too often in a vain search for workable ideas on how to assert itself again as a business entity, then the government had better chip in fast to forestall the looming catastrophe.
It will have played a marvellous role.
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