Author: CHRISTINA MSEJA
AfricaPress-Tanzania: SMALL scale business entrepreneurs have expressed their satisfaction with the normalisation of their income generating activities despite the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic early this year.
This was said recently in Morogoro by the chairman of the Small Business Association Mr Ernest Masanja while making post Covid-19 assessment to the small scale business traders. He said even though the country did not impose lockdown during the pandemic, businesses were not unfolding well as they are doing now.
“If the government had accepted people to lock themselves in their homes in fear of the Covid-19, then small scale business persons could have been highly affected since their businesses involve moving from one place to another searching for customers especially in overcrowding areas like Bus stands,” Mr Masanja said. He added that now, Tanzanians are free to travel anywhere and buy whatever they want, a thing he said gives them guarantee to get profit from the small money making activities they run.
On his part, John Bulo who sells fruits at Mawenzi Market in Morogoro said after the outbreak of the Covid-19, he was not sure on how he would have survived as he solely depends on that small business to manage his family.
“For us small traders, we have to go out in the streets to sell our products and get money as such, if the lockdown policy was imposed in the country, I do not know how we could have sustained,” he noted.
He further pointed out that during the pandemic, his daily income declined as movement of people was not such big comparing now when he said that his usual profits have retained such that he is sure to get money whenever he goes outside to do his business.
On her part, a representative of Tanganyika Christian Refugees Services (TCRS) in Morogoro Rehema Samweli said one of the works implemented by TCRS is to provide entrepreneurship knowledge to the small business operators for them to benefit a lot from what they do.
She said TCRS has made a thorough analysis on the plight of the small traders and found that their operation have returned back to normal despite the eruption of Covid-19 early this year.
