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Dar school bus project in limbo
2008-04-23 09:36:54
By Hannah Mwandoloma
The long-mooted second-time plan to have a Dar es Salaam School Bus Project is at a standstill, with the government appearing reluctant to see it get off the ground.
Implementation of the project is widely expected to spare thousands of children in the city the transport woes they have been facing on a daily basis over the years, mainly on the way from home to school and back.
Last year the government and ABM Agencies, a private transport firm commissioned to oversee the venture, agreed on the modalities and terms of making the project operational.
Education and Vocational Training deputy minister Ludovick Mwananzila expressed full government support for the venture, saying it would relieve students of the harsh transport situation in the country`s commercial capital of an estimated four million people.
By the deputy minister`s projections, the project would have taken off in early January this year.
However, that was not to be and the government now says it is still in talks with a number of other stakeholders on how to advance.
The stakeholders include the Dar es Salaam City Council, Surface and Marine Regulatory Authority (Sumatra), Infrastructure Development ministry, Finance ministry, and Tanzania Investment Centre.
The cabinet reshuffle in February this year is understood to have played a decisive part in the delay.
Mwananzila, who was viewed as a key player credited with the hatching of the whole process of making the project materialise, was sidelined in the shake-up after the ministry was merged with that of Science, Technology and Higher Education.
There has been little noticeable progress since on plans to make the project operational.
Abdulhakim Rayes, managing director of project operators ABM Agencies Ltd, said in an exclusive interview with The Guardian in Dar es Salaam at the weekend that they were ready to start transporting students ``provided the government officially tells us that we can do so``.
``We`re ready to swing into action but the government is yet to give us the green light. We cannot proceed without being told that we have the mandate to go into the business,`` explained Rayes, without giving the terms under which they would be working.
He said they have sent letters and copies of the feasibility study on the project to several organs, among them the Education and Vocational Training ministry, but only a handful have responded.
The few include Sumatra and TIC, which have commended the project as a viable and vital venture that would ably support the country`s education sector by facilitating the mobility of those targeted.
According to Rayes, the Education ministry has full mandate to ensure that the project is implemented “but it has been days, weeks and now months since it commented on the venture and the plan of action”.
He said they have been contacting the ministry time and again on the timeframe for the project`s implementation ``but all we have been told is that they are busy reorganising themselves and we are at a loss as to exactly what is going on``.
``The majority of Dar es Salaam residents wholeheartedly support the project but the operators of some city commuter buses (daladalas) either dislike it or are highly suspicious of it for reasons better known to themselves,`` noted the ABM Agencies executive.
He added: ``Most of them believe that we will monopolise the city`s daladala business and effectively render them jobless. But they forget that all we are out to do is to make the poor students travel under better conditions than is the case until now.``
Rayes pointed out that, if the government allowed them to run the project, they would start with 70 buses able to move a total of at least 7,000 students at a go.
``We will work for an increase in the number in three phases according to demand,`` he said, adding that the plan was for the project to have 210 student buses when fully operational.
He observed that the delay in implementation had disrupted their projections because the prices and other charges in respect of fuel and other essential inputs and services `are going up literally on a daily basis``
``But we will remain patient, hoping the government will endorse the project so that we can start providing services with minimum delay,`` he said.
Contacted for comment, Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Abbas Kandoro said he was not aware of any such project.
``At no point in time have I been involved in the said process. So I cannot comment on it,`` said Kandoro in a telephone interview.
Most Dar es Salaam daladala operators have been reluctant to transport primary and secondary school students, the main excuse being that the 50/- one-way fare the government insists students pay would make them suffer huge losses.
The reluctance and generally rough treatment students are usually subjected to makes many reach school and return home hours late.
A similar project supervised by the youth wing of the ruling CCM years ago collapsed shortly after its launch, with critics blaming the debacle on gross mismanagement.
This earlier effort had won moral and material support from a number of donors, included members of the business community some of whom had promised to help with buses and money.
It is not clear how well this second one will be received.
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