Sunflower business booms as tarred roads built in Singida

Singida. Along the 109km-stretch of the Central Corridor, between Singida and Shelui, everybody had some steam to let off. It was-after all an opportunity not to be missed: The Tanzania National Roads Agency (Tanroads) and the World Bank (WB) were on a surprise tour of five villages along the route; they had with them a guest ever so rare outside of big cities – journalists from national media outlets.

The older men shuffled resolutely to the microphone, then delivered their point, sometimes with a bit of faltering, but often with a sense of triumph at the end. The youth marched forward, and boomed into the little piece of equipment with zest. The women; well those needed coaxing, but eventually they too got talking. They all had pertinent concerns.

The highway in their midst carries the largest amount of international freight traffic across the country but it was not always an all-weather road. It was upgraded over a three-year period as a component of the $122 million World Bank supported Central Transport Corridor Project (CTCP 1) between 2004 and 2009.

Led by engineers Yohannes Mbegalo and Masige Matari, the Tanroads regional engineer and planning director respectively, the Tanroads media road show in Singida was the first leg of the World Bank’s ‘I Can’t Eat Growth’ campaign, intended to stimulate a frank debate on how economic growth benefits the ordinary person.

According to Ms Loy Nabeta, the communications officer for the World Bank, the phrase (“I can’t eat growth”) was in fact a taxi driver’s reaction to a radio news item on the launch of the World Bank’s 4th Tanzania Economic Update last year as he drove a WB member of staff from the Dar es Salaam airport into the city centre. That economic update depicted that Tanzania had maintained a stable and respectable growth rate averaging seven per cent over 2013. However, the taxi driver retorted, “How come I don’t feel this growth in my pocket!”

Says Ms Nabeta: “Basic investments such as roads directly contribute to economic growth as they promote regional trade and open up markets for agricultural produce. As the World Bank, we see that these connections can be made right from the grassroots level when the beneficiaries of some of the investments that we financed speak for themselves.”

Tanzania’s five-year National Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (aka Mkukta), with which the Bank’s partnership strategy is aligned, identifies infrastructure as a cross-sectoral driver of growth. The overall global economic climate allowing, World Bank projections are that Tanzania can achieve a growth rate of 7.5 per cent over the medium term if it can sustain investments in infrastructure as well structural reforms that can improve the business climate.

Time to blossom

Singida has particularly made significant strides in its road network – coming from zero kilometres of tarred roads back in 2005 to 326km today. The new bus stand on the city’s outskirts is a case study in this newly acquired accessibility with more and more buses arriving there each day from various parts of the country.

Along the Singida-Shelui road alone, the recorded average traffic consisted of 274 motor vehicles per day (vpd) in 2005 before the construction of the road. Since the road was completed, that figure has been growing steadily each year, from 575 vpd in 2009, to 992 vpd in 2010, before reaching 1,135 vpd in 2013. In the first quarter of 2014, the number had already reached 1,200 vpd. Though most of this is through-traffic, it is to be expected that it also makes rest stops at different points along the road.

Nowhere has the impact of the region’s improved accessibility been more felt than in the sunflower industry. With more and more local businesspeople acquiring oil processors, there is increased visibility of the product along the various highways in the region. Official figures show a spike in the industry’s growth over the past five years, from 28 tonnes produced in 2007 to 28,000 tonnes in 2013.

“We are actually building the biggest plan for sunflower oil in East Africa,” says Dr Parseko Kone, the Regional Commissioner. “It will have the capacity to employ 120 people on a full time basis and 500 more on a casual basis.”

With an endless supply of sunflower and sorghum seeds to feed on, Singida’s local chickens have a special place on many a menu nationally (as ‘kuku wa asili’ – real chicken, as opposed to the more regular ‘kuku wa kienyeji’ – local chicken), and the roads have enabled this business too to thrive.

At different centres along the roads, food-vending businesses are booming next to each other, as there are just too many hungry travellers stopping for a bite. With no cotton production to write home about seven years earlier, in 2013 Singida yielded 5,000 tonnes and has plans for further expansion of the sector. The region’s budget has grown from Sh24 billion in 2006 to Sh129.2 billion in 2013/2014. From 36 secondary schools in 2006, the region today boasts 154 secondary schools – all built with community resources.

The meaning of a road

Nevertheless, at the local level, a varying picture begins to emerge on the significance of the piece of infrastructure in their midst during the meetings organized by Tanroads for the journalists with villagers in five centres along the Singida-Shelui road – Iguguno, Kyengege, Ulemo, Msigiri and Shelui. The concerns of the villagers were pressing and Mr Mbegalo and Mr Matari were compelled to provide substantive responses to them right there – including setting dates for further meetings, where necessary. Though some issues repeated themselves at different centres, there was some uniqueness too in all the circumstances.

In Iguguno’s case, for example, construction of the new road necessitated a new alignment away from the town centre. Although a 2.5km spur road was also built between the centre and the new highway, the overall chorus (and evidence) was that the town ‘died’ as a result.

Shelui appears to have suffered the same fate, although there was no new alignment in its case. Though a much bigger centre than Iguguno its main businesses, ranging from spare parts, guesthouses, restaurants and small food vendors to bars and groceries, also primarily served the traveller clientele. Today, getting stranded is a thing of the past as buses and trucks simply breeze past. However, in the face of diminished livelihoods, residents say they now have to cope with an increased crime rate as many youths were rendered redundant.

Contrasting profiles…

…Rehema Nkya, formerly ‘Mama Ntilie’, Iguguno

Rehema Nkya sat quietly among the other women who made it to the village meeting. But even as the village chairperson prodded the women to speak up, she kept quiet – they all did. Eventually, the chairperson agreed to the journalists’ suggestion to meet the women separately in a council room nearby. There, when the women were asked who wished to say something, everybody pointed at Rehema. She gave in and stepped forward.

The 43 year-old mother of four was engaged in a roaring business as a food vendor (they are popularly known as ‘Mama Ntilie’) for many years before the construction of the Singida-Shelui road. She took home between Sh100,000 and Sh150,000 everyday, after deducting expenses. Then the road came. She tried to brave it even as the demand for her ugali and stew dwindled; hoping things would change somehow. Then she could no longer justify her doggedness. Finally, in 2009 she quit the business and, with her savings, set herself up in hairdressing shop. As almost everyone in her community is struggling to cope with the change in fortunes, she considers it a very good day whenever she retires with anything above Sh5,000 a day.

“For us who were not engaged in any business beyond this road, beyond this area,” says Rehema, “we lost out and that is the whole truth. We depended completely on this road, on the traffic it brought.”

Many women nodded in agreement. And when she finally handed back the microphone, they all applauded.

…Fatuma Mwanga, trader, Iguguno

Having nobody to stand in for her at her busy garments shop, Fatuma, 37, could not afford to come for the village meeting a block away from her business. She states matter-of-factly, “The road has moved away from us.”

But she is not doing badly either. With her husband, they are quite busy trading between Arusha and Iguguno. They take sunflower oil to sell in Arusha and return with merchandise – mainly clothes – to sell in Iguguno.

“Before the road, we transported very few things and at a high cost,” says Fatuma. That has changed. For each 20-litre jerry can of sunflower oil, they are paying Sh2,000 today, compared to Sh5,000 before construction of the road. “It was very expensive and it also affected how much we sold.”

Back in 2005, they transported between 20 and 30 Jerry cans, every other week during the peak sunflower season and, together with the sales from the merchandise they brought back from Arusha, they were able to command up to Sh500,000 in profits on each trip. Today, however, despite the cheaper transportation costs, they are only making a marginal Sh800,000 per trip.

“There are more and more people doing the same business today as a result of the improved road,” says Fatuma. “You have to be grateful when you are able to make that much.”

The processor

The setup looks very much like a warehouse in the middle of a decent compound, with its office in a separate building. The ‘office’ is in fact John Shaila’s three-bedroom home, and the warehouse-like building is where he set up his humble Elshadaai Oil Mill in 2010, upon retirement.

With the installed equipment, he has the capacity to process 100 sacks of sunflower (each 80kg) per day with 10 employees. During the off-season visit, however, the equipment lies idle. “The supply of seeds affects the processing. It can be a challenge getting seeds during the low season,” explains Shaila. “On the other hand, during the peak season from April to October is when we buy all the bags that we can afford and store them. You cannot process at that time when the market is flooded.”

During peak season, Shaila can usually afford to buy up to 10,000 bags of sunflower seed, with each bag yielding 20 litres of oil which is currently going for up to Sh55,000.

“We have more accessibility as a region than before,” explains Shaila. “With the assurance of reaching other areas, many people are becoming more encouraged and setting themselves up as small processors like me, or in beekeeping as honey is also lucrative business here. The products lining the region’s highways are a sign that there are people coming to buy them. It was not the case before.”

Winning…and losing

Kombo Biki, Iguguno – “We are happy with the new road because today, one can leave for Mwanza even at 9am and be back by 4pm. You have assurance that you will achieve whatever you have planned for the trip, unlike in the past when ending up stranded for days was also part of the plan.”

Daudi Benjamin, Iguguno – “The road has not met our expectations. We are too far from it. There is no incentive for the buses to pass through here and they were our source of livelihood. We need a bus stand so that buses are compelled to pass through here for us to improve our incomes.”

Tanroads: The road is your friend. You simply must find creative activities to engage in now, with a new road. We all must learn to make use of what we are lucky to have in our midst since others do not have it. There are many people across the country begging us to build them a road or improve what they have. We don’t have enough resources.

Jacob Mwagala, Iguguno – “The truth is we are like an island far away from the main street.”

Maburuki Salum, Iguguno – “We are concerned that we do not have enough road signs. As a result, people have lost loved ones as well as cattle due to speeding vehicles. As pedestrians, we have rights too, including the right to live and to enjoy the fruits of development.

Tanroads: We have a major problem concerning the theft of road signs in many parts of the country. This is a very serious offence. We are working to replace all stolen signs and a contractor has already started work from Singida coming this way. We expect them to complete this exercise by June. However, we all have to understand that the roads do not belong to Tanroads or to the Government. They belong to you and me and we each have to play our role to protect them. They are our investment. I am appealing to all citizens to alert the authorities as soon as you see anyone with a road sign in their house or if they are transplanting one. Our goal is to work with the authorities and legislators to impose serious punishment for this crime.

Haruna Ramadhani, Iguguno – “We have a problem with the runoff which is flooding into the school on the other side of the spur road. We also need more pedestrian crossings in the area; currently we only have one at the school but we need possibly three more. We also need access steps for the elderly as the road is elevated. We have seen elders tumbling down as they climb towards the road.”

Tanroads:

* We had not received any report about the flooding. Let’s work together to organise a follow-up visit to the school so that we can see what can be done. In Kilimanjaro area, they had a similar problem and when we visited, together with the ministry of Water officials, we worked together on a solution involving water harvesting. We may need to see if this can be applied to the school flooding.

** We are currently engaged in an exercise to remove road bumps where they serve no purpose and to build them where they make sense. You will see our consultants in this area soon.

*** The safety of citizens as they try to access the road is important and we are taking that feedback back to the Roads Board. A road is meant to bring joy and not sadness and our current mission is to address all safety issues first and foremost.

Juma Haribi, Iguguno – “It used to cost Sh800 to get from here to Singida by bus. Today it is Sh2,000. We don’t understand why it was cheaper for us to travel when the road was bad and now that we have a better road, the fare is higher.” Tanroads: The matter of fares is the responsibility of the Surface and Marine Transport Authority (Sumatra). However, we also need to understand that the shilling has depreciated a lot since 2007 and things do not cost the same as back then.”

Samwel John, Kyengege – We need an access road to the village so that we can bring our produce to the road. At this point, we are experiencing a lot of hardship getting our goods to the main road as trucks cannot come because there is not access road for them.”

Tanroads: Strictly speaking, this is something that the local authorities need to consider and plan for. As Tanroads we may only offer advice on this but it is your local authorities that need to lead this initiative.

Nicodemus Maige, Kyengege – Some of us found ourselves invaded by the road and then our houses were marked with the red marks. We have not understood why we earned this. We need this understanding so that we don’t waste our precious times and resources on gardens and houses that will end up demolished.

Tanroads: The road was designed and constructed within the guidelines and resources we had. The law in our country since 2007, grants a road space extending 30 metres from the centre on each side of the road. Before 2007, that requirement was 22.5 metres.

Those who were ‘invaded’ by the road after the new law (i.e. they were in fact 22.5 metres away from the centre then the law came requiring them to be 30 metres away) will be compensated by Government. However, those who were within the 22.5 metres have to leave without compensation.

Stephano Kitundu, Ulemo village – “I first saw a tarmac road in 1953 and I have seen many roads since then. This road is below standard and you need to explain to us why.”

Tanroads: The road was built to good standards given the resources we had at the time. It is a TLC 10 (i.e. Traffic Load Class 10, with pavement designed with stabilized sub-base of cement). Recognizing that it is carrying far more and much heavier traffic than expected, we have already started maintenance efforts. Maintenance is considered a constant requirement for any road and it should not be seen as a sign that the road is a failure.”

Mariam Samwel, Ulemo village – “The road has given me employment as a road sweeper and I am happy with it.”

Msengi, Ulemo village councillor – “The accidents are happening because they didn’t allocate enough space for the shoulders. When pedestrians find themselves in the path of a bus driving at 160km per hour, what do you expect?”

Tanroads: We take note of that observation and we intend to act on it especially since we are currently in the process of reviewing the safety aspects of the road.

Jackson Magu, Misigiri village – “When you meet a cross on your house and nobody tells you what it means, it can be paralyzing. We don’t know what these things mean. We find ourselves unable to renovate our houses as they have been condemned with that Red Cross. We find ourselves unable to do anything and some of us will soon be dying from snakebites as we are exposed. We cannot even access credit as a result of this cross.”

Tanroads: Our advice to you is that if you are within the 22.5 metre space from the centre of the road, which is why you have earned the cross, you must make new plans and leave that house. You invaded the road; it did not invade you.

Ephraim Janga, Msigiri village – Our dispensary down the other side of the road has been flooding since that road was built.

Tanroads: We have received a similar complaint in Iguguno and we plan to visit such sites and to act on the issue. Mbezi Tanganyika, Serembwe village, Shelui – We are not happy with this road. The only benefit is that we get to our destinations earlier than before. But our livelihoods have been ruined. Buses no longer stop to support our businesses. How can we celebrate the road?”

Tanroads: Fellow citizens, you have been given a road. You must embrace it. Others are begging us and we don’t have the resources to build them roads. Find new things to do.

Dina Elizabeth, Serembwe, Shelui – “I need to know why the media has no presence in our area at all.”

They cover animals in other areas, but we have deaths here on this road every day and we have no coverage at all!”

The journalists responded by providing the audience with the mobile phone contacts of their local representative.