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Tanzania: It Was Hard Enough, Now Authorities Want Their Carts
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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
ANALYSIS
23 November 2007
Posted to the web 23 November 2007
Mwanza
A commuter bus filled with passengers leaves the Chai ya Kwanza bus stop along Nyerere Road heading towards the central market. Suddenly, from the opposite direction, a man pushes his cart into the road as he attempts to cross from right to left heading for Balewa Street. The driver jams his foot on the brakes as he swerves the car to the right, missing the cart and its pusher by a mere whisker. The sudden braking irritates many passengers some of whom are heard shouting in anger.
Recovering his breath, a passenger seated next to the driver remarks,"Oh dear, that was close!"
The driver is visibly angry."These people shouldn't be allowed to operate in the city!" he barks."They are a nuisance. They know nothing about traffic rules and they manoeuvre as they please!"
As people recover from the shock of the near collision, they join the agitated conversation with varied comments about the 'muscle-powered' vehicles on many streets in Tanzania today.
The cart-pushers in Mwanza are one group of self-employed people who are really feeling the pressure of the growing city automobile traffic. As the city develops authorities are starting to see them as a nuisance and are striving to push them out.
It's come a long way
The carts as a means carrying things became mainstream during the 1980s economic crisis in Tanzania. Mwanza carts were then mostly of a larger size with motorcar wheels. They had a load capacity of a pickup truck and when fully loaded it took a couple of men to push them. They had a main man who pulled from the front while the rest of the crew pushed along from behind.
A city directive in the 90s ordered the cart operators to reduce the size of their carts if they wanted to be allowed to operate within the city. That's when the big motorcar tires were discarded and replaced by small bicycle wheels. However, the Mwanza cart still remains a very rudimentary contraption that uses no fuel and hardly needs any spare parts.
It is not one to be underestimated though. It is a lifesaver for many city dwellers who use it to cart their stuff around and for many businesspeople who find it cheaper than hired cars when it comes to transporting merchandise from different points in Mwanza.
Also, hundreds of men who would have been jobless or sucked into crime today consider it a privilege just being able to eke a living out of pushing such vehicles.
Jackson Makaranga, 35, a cart pusher at the Market Street, says most of the men like him seen pushing the carts don't actually own them; they hire them on contract from their owners.
Joseph Lunyampya, 28, has been pushing carts for a year now. Before that he was a construction worker and earned Sh2,000 per day. That was fixed; there was no bonus no matter how hard you worked. And all the building contractors in town set the same rate.
"The money was too little," says Lunyampya."One of my friends introduced me to a cart owner. It wasn't easy to get one at first, there are many people looking for carts to hire."
Be rich, own your own cart
The way the business works, you need a referee whom the cart owner trusts before you are allowed to hire their vehicle."Hiring" this vehicle means that you are going to be the cart's pusher and you have to bring a fixed sum agreed upon at the end of each day to the owner of the cart. The hiring fees must be paid everyday without fail even when you are sick and have not done any business. Such is the demand for carts to push that if you don't pay up on any day you could lose your contract and the cart will be snapped by another hirer.
Lunyampya says:"The job is good because after you have paid the daily fees you are your own boss."
Each day comes with its fortune. Today you could make just the Sh2,000 that the owner expects of you, or you could go up to Sh6,000 and pocket the difference. The hiring rates depend on the size of the vehicle, smaller carts go for Sh500 per day and bigger ones can reach as high as Sh2,000 per day. Naturally, cart pushers tend to be people who cannot find jobs in the formal sector and are therefore forced to look for income by selling their labour.
Many people may find it baffling that anyone would want to push someone else's cart in the blistering sun when they can own their own but that is until you learn that the cost of putting together a cart can be as high as Sh100,000 which is highly unaffordable to many in the unemployed ranks. So they agree to hire from the luckier owners hoping that after about two years they may finally break even and be able to own their own carts.
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While pushing a cart might be the lucky break for its pusher but to many among the motorists, city authorities and even those who hire them to transport their goods, it can and has been a source of constant frustration.
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