Can you just give us some more background information on your ministry and also the development of the sector in the last couple of years?
The Ministry of Public Works is responsible for the development of especially roads and bridges infrastructure, and as a sideline, procurement procedures in the country, and government property; buildings, vehicles, government stores, are all under the responsibility of the Ministry of Works. But the primary responsibility is roads. Roads transport in this country constitutes about 80% of the transport requirement of the country. The remaining 20% is divided between sea, air, train - railway lines. Otherwise here, the country depends on road transport. Considering the size of this country, my ministry is responsible for some 80,000 kms of road. There are more kilometers that are under the responsibility of local authorities, village authorities. Out of 80,000 kms of road, only 10,000 is paved road. You can imagine that I have to pave some 70,000 kms. It is something that we will achieve in the near future. It is a big challenge. Most of our roads are earth roads; We have the roads, to maintain pass ability, so that the country is connected.
Good infrastructure is necessary for economic growth. Can you tell us a little bit about current projects you are undertaking?
We are developing our road projects on the basis of corridor concepts - to open up corridors to the harbor. We are lucky here, we have eleven neighbors, and we have the sea coast. Most of our neighbors have no access to the sea ports. So the Corridor concept is to open up the harbors both for Tanzania, and for our neighbors, to connect Tanzania to other countries. So we have the Central Corridor, the biggest, that connects us in Dar es Salaam, to the center of the country to Mwanza on the Lake Victoria, and then from there, to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and onwards maybe to Congo. We have 9 corridors altogether. Then we have the Eastern Corridor, that takes us from the coastal belt. We have the Tazara corridor that connects us to Malawi, and Zambia. The newest Corridor is the Mtwara Development Corridor that connects Mtwara port on the south to Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. But this newest corridor concept we are looking at is used to develop all the potentials that are found in that area. For example, we have gold deposits, we have iron deposits, we have precious metals there. So we are going to link the development of this, the exploitation of this with potentials - with the road infrastructure, and with the railway line. It is going to be a public-private partnership. It is going to be private driven, with the support of the government. We hope that all the other corridors that we develop are government projects. But the Mtwara development is going to be a private project. So that we want to consider the exportation of the natural resources that are abundant in that area, to private people, who in turn will develop the infrastructure. That is a new concept. In order to have a sustainable development, private people must be involved. Ownership again - it is different when a project is owned by the government, compared to projects owned personally, or by private people. There is a lot of flexibility, when it is owned privately. And gone are the days when governments can do everything for the people. People have to do everything for themselves, with the help of the government. So we want to reintroduce that concept with road construction, bridge construction, running of ferries. We have the newest achievement on Ferries, to connect Mozambique with Tanzania. We did the road up the river, River Ruvuma, and the Benedictine Missionaries, together with TAMOFA, (Tanzania Mozambique Friendship Association), they brought in the Ferry. They are running the Ferry. We did all the infrastructure, but they are running it. If we had to wait for the government to buy that Ferry, it would not have been there. The Ferry is now functioning. We are seeing more of these projects, whereby government encourages private people to participate.
| How are you attracting private investment, and also what is actually the presence of foreign investors right now, here in Tanzania who are participating in projects?
Not very many on this concept, because it is new. We have just introduced it. But we have had a lot of inquiries. I think there was articles in the internet, and in the Newspapers. That's when we started getting people, who inquired from us, how they could participate. But we have had several inquiries now. We have gone around looking at what the countries are doing in terms of private participation, especially in infrastructure. We are very new in this but we have had many inquiries and immediately after election, we will pass a legislation on the framework on how best people can participate. We will have this legislation so people will have no doubts on what to do; we do not want when people change the government, to change - we want it to be strong so that they can continue without any problems in future.
You also established the Tanzania Road Agency (TANROADS). What is their role?
It shall be on the concept of private running of government roads. Government has a way of running things. People take their time, before we have changes in the ministry - we would like the government to remain with its fundamental function of policy making, and just to oversee things, and let other people do it. I have two departments within the Ministry. The department of rural roads, and the department of Trunk roads. The functions of these two departments have been transferred to the TANROADS with effect from 1st July this year. So I will contract them, and tell them," I have this money, I want these roads to be built." They will be our contractors, whoever I contract the work from. But I don't have to know who are our contractors. I just want value for my money. TANROADS is my contractor. I will contract them all maintenance work. We start with maintenance - all maintenance of roads will be done by them. We will be responsible to make sure that they get money, to do that job. Because they will function as private businesses, though they are government, they are private. They have their own management, they have their own board. I will keep my hands off, but my eyes on, on TANROADS. I cannot delegate responsibilities, as I am responsible to the Parliament. I leave them to do whatever the government wants them to do without interfering, they will do all the processes themselves. Actually we have given them an option to employ people from my ministry, but they can also employ people from outside my ministry. They have at least one year transition period, whereby all legislations will be changed, because the Highway Ordinance puts all the matters of road responsibility on the Ministry responsible for roads. But really, after one year we are going to change that Highway Ordinance. So it is going to be TANROADS, the Roads Agency, while we will be responsible for policy formulation and planning. The Chief Executive is already in office.
What are your future outlooks, where do you see the Ministry and also the development of the public roads in a couple of years?
Everything depends on roads. Agriculture, Health, depends on roads. We have very remote areas of the country. People don't want to go there, because of problems of transportation. As I see it, and the government has now put emphasis on roads infrastructure development, roads are is Number One priority of the country. If we improve roads, even health will improve. Because you can reach a place in a shorter time. The economy of the country, I am sure, will improve. So it is a key sector for the economic development of the country. Agricultural development and everything is dependant on road transport. And it is the cheapest mode of transport for everybody. |
