Preparations for Dodoma capital city master plan take off

Dodoma. The government, in collaboration with experts, has started a preliminary stage of drafting a modern master plan for the development of Capital City of Dodoma.

More than 2,000 public leaders and civil servants have so far relocated to Dodoma between August last year and February this year.

More than 2,000 other civil servants will shift to Dodoma by the end of this month, a move, which will see a significant population increase in the designated capital city.

Currently, Dodoma has a shortage of residences and structures for office apartments and some key infrastructure to provide for a rapid increase in the number of people and of vehicles.

To address the challenge, for the past four days, nine experts from Kenya’s UN-Habitant met with their local counterparts from Dodoma’s Institute of Rural Development Planning (IRDP), Ardhi University, the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Government) to deliberate on how the capital city can be constructed more professionally.

At the meeting, which attracted also district executive directors from all seven Dodoma districts, participants developed an action plan to be used as a yardstick by the government during drafting of the master plan for the designated capital city. Held under the theme of ‘Sustainable Dodoma Vision 2025-Dodoma City we want’ participants stressed a need for effective consideration of integrated urban planning, when drafting the master plan.

They debated also on the best way to design a modern housing strategy, street designs, urban development control strategies, rural-urban linkages in Dodoma and the establishment of a metropolitan hub in Dodoma.

In his remarks during the closure of a four-day meeting held at the weekend, deputy Minister in the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Government) Selemani Jafo said the government was very determined to transform Dodoma into the best African city. “The government’s focus is to get a state-of-the-art master plan for the development of a modern capital city of Dodoma so that other countries may come and take a leaf from us.”

We don’t want to repeat the mistakes we made, when developing Dar es Salaam City. We want Dodoma to have a real face and status of the capital city,” he pointed out.

More than 12,000 hectares have been set aside for the development of the government city between Bahi and Bwigiri wards. The area is expected to include office blocks, residential areas for civil servants, commercial service areas, playing grounds, an air strip and other necessary social services.