IF there is a time to smile when a good house has been all your dream and then it came true, then some police officers in Tarime District, Mara Region believe the turn is theirs.

Three dilapidated houses at Nyangoto and Nyamwaga police stations are now looking new and modern, thanks to the North Mara Gold Mine for sponsoring the rehabilitation of the houses.

Two of the houses have capacity to accommodate eight families and the other would be accommodating several of them who are yet to get married.

"We have many police posts with no decent residential houses. I believe these good houses will motivate our officers to be more efficient ", said Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Justus Kamugisha , the Regional Police Commander (RPC) for Tarime special police zone .

The RPC sees rehabilitation of the houses as a big relief to several officers of the two police stations. "I have no appropriate words to express my appreciation to the mine, apart from saying thank you so much, " the regional police commander said recently in his brief remarks at the official handle over of the houses after successful completion of the rehabilitation work.

"I wish all police stations were like Nyamwaga and Nyangoto," one of the police living in the rehabilitated houses said . The mine has coughed up nearly 450m/- to execute the project that has further involved rehabilitation of the two police station offices and a primary court at Nyamwaga village.

"This is a clear demonstration that the mine values the government's endeavour in ensuring that this area is safe," said ACP Kamugisha.

Mr Gary Chapman, the North Mara Gold Mine General Manager (GM) expressed optimism that improvement of the police officers' houses and the offices would help boost security of the mine and the surrounding local communities.

North Mara is one of the country's largest gold mines in the country. The mine which is located in Nyamongo area is run by African Barrick Gold(ABG), the largest gold producer in Tanzania.

The entire work of rehabilitating of the police force houses and officers has been successfully done by Kiribo Construction Ltd, one of the leading local contractors with a track record of performing well and timely.

Mr Kebacho Monata, the Managing Director of Kiribo Construction Company said his company has managed to complete the work earlier before the set deadline.

"We were done with this work within 182 days and speeded up the work after realizing that the police officers were in dire need of the houses," said Mr Monata. Both the RPC and the GM were impressed with competence demonstrated by the local contractor ( Kiribo) in executing the assignment .