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Beer Bars, Local Brew, Biggest Employer in Tanzania-Survey
2005-07-10 10:54:19
By Peter Msungu
In 1976, an independent physical inventory of bars was conducted in the city of Dar es Salaam, and it revealed that there were over 300 bars selling beer.
This figure excluded beer stores and kiosks which had also flooded the market.
Today, twenty nine years after, it is estimated that there over 4000 bars in Dar es Salaam alone, again this is exclusive of beer stores or kiosks, a.k.a Kwa Shangazi’.
Engineer Oddo Mng’ong’o, a resident of Kibamba, Makondeko area, on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, Kinondoni district, this week talked to the Sunday Observer and registered his disgust over this forgotten bar industry, which provides not only employment to thousands of Tanzanians, but leisure after a day’s hard work.
“Where would many of our women folk be today, if there were no beer bars/beer stores/ kiosks or the numerous unlicensed places such as “vilabu” that.
we have in our residential areas,” asks Oddo Mng’ong’o, the courageous civil engineer, who has volunteered to do this unsolicited research for the development of the bar/pub drinking sector. I am using the term ‘unsolicited’ because as far as I understand, nobody had assigned him to undertake this ardous and unending research on beer drinking.
First, talking of bars as the biggest employer on the land of slightly more than 34 million people, Mng’ong’o says that on the assumption of a conservative average of 8 bar attendants/maids per bar, the Dar es Salaam bar sector alone, presently provides employment and sustainable income to more than 100,000 Tanzanians, mainly women, many of whom have been to schools.
“This figure, says Mng’ong’o, does not include the bar owners themselves, the meat roasters, supu makers and servers and the chips and eggs friers, who usually provide complementary services to the bars. If one takes into account all these, the above figure rises to over 200,000 employees.
If part timers and the so called day workers (day waka) are to be included, then definitely the figure will plummet to millions.
”What a safe employment sector but authorities have never acknowledged it,” Mng’ong’o wonders.
Talking to this reporter confidently and with a lot of pride, the civil engineer says this guess figure of 40,000 employees, is by no means small. It could be equivalent to a combined total of employees of the Tanzania Harbours Authority and Tanzania Railways Corporation, estimated at about that number.
“At National level a comparative figure of bar employees has not been obtained because authorities that be, have not found it necessary to do so. This, perhaps, in itself, is an indication of how the sector has been ignored,” argues Mng’ong’o, adding that the figure above does not include employees in the local brew industry of Komoni, Mbege, Dengerua, Wanzuki, Kangara, Kindi, Ulanzi, just to mention few, which are all legal and best options not only for the low income groups but also for people who like to uphold their traditions, e.g. the Wahehe, Wachaga, Wahaya with their Rubisi etc, etc.
“The local brew drinking sector, by far outweighs the bar/pub sector figure,” emphasizes an ardent supporter of Mng’ong’o, Mr.Kivanga, who happened to have been around when this interview was being conducted,
Commenting further on local brew, which has been there from the time we saw this world (in the rural areas), Mng’ong’o explains that the local brew sector is, perhaps, more than any other income and employment generating sector, the greatest provider of vacant opportunities to women in the developing world, Tanzania included.
“If you are a music lover just watch the video of and listen to the song by Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Mukomboti (African beer),” to appreciate the significance of the local brew,” Mng’ong’o admits, adding that he intends to discuss the role of this local brew sector in the not too distant future.
Bar drinking sector as a social service
Having done a thorough research into the bar drinking sector, Oddo Mng’ong’o, is of a strong feeling that the importance of the bar sector to the community is a debatable one, but is by far, one of the four commonly availed services in the world. Others are food, clothing and shelter.
An average person, the researcher argues, comes to know people and be known through several sources: introductions at one’s village; introductions at schools and colleges, at worship houses, work places, at drinking places, at social functions, such as weddings, mournings, etc.
“A random survey in the country, has revealed, however, that introductions in drinking places, or call them bars/pubs, by far constituted the majority of one’s stored data of people known by him/her,” Mng’ong’o narrates confidently, adding that it is also true that the majority of friendships, fianceehoods, acquaintances, solidarities, political affiliations, business opportunities, etc, have had drinking places as their starting points.
He concludes by saying that this is perhaps logical in that one is not supposed to move from pew to pew in church trying to introduce oneself or take a friend to a nearby mosque with a wish to discuss fianceehood. “Equally odd”, Mng’ong’o continues, ’’ is the thought of going to a worship place with the hope of exploring business opportunities’’.
’’Last, but not least’’, Mng’ong’o went on, “many promotions/demotions, political or otherwise, can have their sources traced back to the bar where some government or private eye attentively sat pretending to be quenching his thirst, while in fact he is sitting there with dual purposes’’.
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