MORE women now do jobs that were previously done by men at ports under the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA), thanks to the purchase of modern equipment.
According to Dock Workers Union of Tanzania (Dowuta), in the past most of works at ports were masculine, thus women were by the nature of such jobs excluded from employment.
However, efforts by the fifth phase government to improve port efficiency by purchasing modern equipment have seen more women doing the jobs.
Dowuta revealed this when TPA women celebrated International Women’s Day in Dar es Salaam on Sunday evening.
The event was graced by Minister of State in the President Office (Good Governance) George Mkuchika.
“The 50:50 employment ratio between women and men at TPA has been made possible because we (women) don’t need to use energy to perform jobs. There is modern equipment,” TPA Dowuta co-chairperson Abiduna Athuman said.
She noted that in the past years most jobs required porters to do them, unlike now whereby machines had taken over.
Mr Mkuchika said the government was for gender equality so more efforts were directed towards providing more education opportunities to girls through free education.
On the other hand, the government had increased the number of women in leadership and decision-making roles, noting that in this year women constituted 24.5 per cent of cabinet ministers up from 18.5 per cent in 2019.
Meanwhile, he said during the current government there had been significant change in revenue collection from the country’s ports, challenging TPA that it was even possible to increase more revenue if adherence to principles of good governance and ethics was increased.
During the event, Mr Nkuchika launched the constitution of the Association of TPA Women which so far had 400 members.
“I advise you to utilize this association to build capacity in female workers to increase number of women in leadership positions and decision-making bodies,” he urged.
Commenting, TPA Director General Deusdedit Kakoko said TPA would ensure there was gender equality in recruitment.
Currently, TPA has 700 female workers and 2,670 male workers.
