The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
23 November 2007
analysis
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.
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.
Wrong side of the law
Then there have been numerous cases of cart pushers making off with their customers' cargo. Salome Kwilasa, a teacher at Nyanza B Primary School says she was once a victim of such theft.
"I had hired a cart to carry a 50kg bag of rice for me from the shops to the school. As we moved, I thought at first that the man was just keeping up a brisk pace but as we went on the speed increased. Suddenly I lost sight of him around a bend. When I ran and looked around the corner. The cart pusher had disappeared. I looked all around in vain. That's when it sunk in that I had been robbed."
But such incidences are probably not the sole reason that city authorities are seeking to banish cart pushers from the streets. It seems theirs has to do with the congestion factor.
First the thing is really slow. Thus in the Rock City's narrow roads it can spark off some very nasty traffic jams. Sometimes too accidents involving carts are known to happen. And so after successfully ejecting the street vendors earlier on, the city militia (mgambo) have now been let lose on the cart pushers.
In September and October this year the militia confiscated carts and in some cases, handed out some ruthless beating in the process.
A city official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that over 300 carts and wheelbarrows were being held at the city's Fire Brigade premises.
"The owners must pay a fine to get them back. They must also promise not to break the law again. They can operate in the suburbs but not within the city centre. If caught a second time, the culprit can be sentenced to jail," the city source said.
Not everybody thinks the authorities are acting right. Siprian Luzangi, a lecturer of economics at St. Augustine University of Tanzania, says he is surprised by the city's actions."Does this law banning carts from the city centre reflect the common people's needs? These people provide a kind of service. It is up-to-the-door service," he says.
In Mwanza, most people live up the hills, in places like Bugando, Bugalika, Nyanshana, and Isamilo that are not far from the city centre. However, the roads leading up tend to be so slippery that other vehicles prefer not to venture there except the carts.
When it reaches a point where the road is inaccessible due the unplanned nature of the settlements, the cart pusher goes the extra mile of carrying the cargo on his back right to the front door without any extra charges. According to some, this is something the taxi driver would never do.
Luzangi suggests that instead of the city authorities making laws prohibiting the cart pusher from the centre they should consider setting up guidelines that would help them provide a better service. For example, argues Luzangi, they could set specific hours of the day when the traffic is light enough for them to operate without inconveniencing motorists.
We love the cheaper alternative
Tomas Maduka, 26, also thinks that the authorities are being unrealistic. He owns a retail shop at Igombe; about 16 kilometres from downtown and always uses carts to ferry his goods."I find carts very useful when purchasing goods from different wholesale shops around the city. I use them to collect all the items I have bought at one point before hiring a pickup to haul them off to my shop in Igombe. I can't afford to hire a taxi for that purpose, it's too expensive."
And environmental journalist Anna Julius suggests the authorities are hitting at the wrong target. She says,"In light of the climatic change caused by burning of fossil fuels I see any machine that doesn't consume petrol or diesel as indispensable."
To Julius, forward-looking cities should be considering reorganising themselves to accommodate more muscle-powered vehicles such as bicycles, carts and wheelbarrows rather than ejecting them."This is not just for the sake of reducing air pollution caused by engine powered vehicles but also to combat the ever rising cost of fuel."
Hide and seek now...
Try telling that to a mgambo on duty. At the corner of Liberty Street, a cart pusher stands a few steps from his cart while we talk. It is Marwa Chacha, 30, dressed in a greasy worn out blue shirt, pale pink trousers and pair of red plastic sandals. He is waiting for customers from the wholesale shops along Liberty Street. He moves a couple of steps further away from the cart as three members of the city militia come walking along the road. Chacha holds his breath. The uniformed men look around as if in search of something and then move on.
Chacha lets out a sigh of relief. Another narrow escape, he says. If he were to be arrested, his cart would be confiscated and to get it back he would have to pay a fine of Sh50,000. There are also the beatings to worry about.
It is an experience that Kulwa Nassoro, 28, a cart pusher who operates around the city centre streets knows all too well.
He has already had one cart confiscated though he has managed to hire another one."I didn't go to school," he says."This is the only business I know." His muscled arms confirm this.
He adds,"The government keeps telling us to create our own employment. This is how I have done so. But see what is happening. They are terrorising us. We can't operate freely."
Nassoro says that at first the crackdown paralysed their business. Now things have eased off a little but he still fears ending up jobless.
Even for those with alternative employment like Jackson Makaranga, the prospect is terrifying.
Makaranga earns between Sh6,000 and Sh8,000 per day for his services. From that amount, he pays the owner his fee of Sh2,000 while he pockets the rest for himself and his family of four.
This is in addition to the income he gets cultivating his shamba at Nyambiti in Magu district.
He says,"During the cultivation season I farm to get food. Then I come to work in town. I like this job. It's not as bad as most people think. I can save money."
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