Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE government has urged local contractors to form joint ventures to bolster their capacities in winning tenders for the implementation of strategic construction projects.
Strong warning was also issued to local contractors who corrupt officials in applying for tenders, saying that is the reason why most of them fail to meet deadline and quality of the projects.
The call was made on Thursday in Arusha by the Deputy Minister for Works and Transportation, Mwita Waitara when opening the Consultative Meeting between Contractors Registration Board (CRB) and local contractors that is going on in Arusha.
He said government wishes to see all big projects that cost trillions of money are implemented by local contractors because by doing so the money will be retained within the country.
“I want to assure you that the government is unhappy to see all mega projects done by foreign companies because we use our muscles to collect revenues and easily export them something which is unhealthy to our economy,” he said.
The Deputy Minister stressed further if local contractors will opt for joint ventures, they will win all big construction projects and the money will remain circulating within the country.
He said he is not happy to see many local contractors companies doing small construction projects while strategic projects like Standard Railways Gauge (SGR) and Mwalimu Nyerere Hydro Power Project (JNHPP) which cost trillions of money are done by foreign companies. He said he visited one construction site in Tanga Region previously and was surprised to see over 90 per cent of experts who were present in the project were locals while there were only two Chinese experts.
“For sure the situation surprised me, because if that is the case why they take trillions of our money and use our experts to implement their projects and pay our experts very little I think it is high time to build our capacity and we will be happy to see them doing subcontract from our local companies,” said deputy minister.
Speaking about force account, Mwita said the government decided to use that model in implementation of its projects after bad results from some local contractors who were awarded government construction projects. He said if local contractors will assure government that they have changed and they are ready to implement government projects within agreed time and quality, government is also ready to award them construction tenders.
“We can negotiate about force account because cheap sometimes can cost you a lot and the minister will give you the government position on this during Mwanza consultative meeting on June,” said Mwita.
The CRB Chairperson of the board, engineer Consolata Ngimbwa asked the government to give construction tenders to local companies because currently they are in bad situation economically.
Eng Ngimbwa said the force account model that is used by government in construction of its projects tapped local contractors in financial problems and it reached a time some of them can’t be able to pay their staff.
