DODOMA:MINISTER of State, President's Office-Regional Administrations and Local Governments (PO-RALG), Mohamed Mchengerwa, has officially announced a strategy to promote and develop indigenous contractors so that they meet international quality and safety standards.
He said this on Wednesday during the Rural and Urban Roads Agency (TARURA) staff meeting held in Dodoma.
Mr Mchengerwa said the Government has planned to ensure that it elevates indigenous contractors and stressed that in addition to TARURA's responsibilities, the agency will have the responsibility of promoting and developing indigenous contractors.
"We cannot separate TARURA from local contractors, the agency's strategy is to ensure that by 2025 rural and urban roads would have been developed by 85 percent, but as we are going to achieve that success, we must ask ourselves how many indigenous contractors we have developed as development of infrastructure contributes to the economy of the people and the nation" he said.
"I ask you to ensure that indigenous contractor's promotion and development is given high priority, today I am officially announcing a strategy to promote indigenous contractors that will be managed by you", he added.
He said the strategic plan is to empower indigenous construction companies so that they can fully participate in the implementation of projects announced by TARURA.
"The main goal of this program is to improve the environment in which Tanzanian entrepreneurs can succeed, grow and make a significant contribution to the development of the country" he said.
Mchengerwa noted that the agency should also aim at building strong and independent local contractors with the ability to face 21st century challenges.
He also noted that the goals of the program is to strengthen the capacity of at least 20 contractor companies in each region, a step that will help open their economic growth and prosperity doors.
"If TARURA decides to identify and empower 20 companies from each region based on merit and unbiased criteria, this means we will have 520 empowered companies for this region's economic development," he said.
Mchengerwa also instructed the agency to prepare a clear procedure when selecting those 20 companies from each region and emphasised it should be a fair process.
He said the strategy will be sustainable if the training programme and facilitation of the access to financial resources and improvement of control systems to reduce obstacles for local contractors will be implemented and be able to compete.
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"Sometimes plan to provide technical and advisory assistance by providing project standards, safety standards and quality control" he said.
Mchengerwa also emphasised that the agency should ensure that there is access to capital for contractors and set thresholds that will help them borrow so that they can invest in technology and be able to compete internationally.
Mchengerwa said currently most of the capital that is invested by TARURA in implementing projects isolates local contractors and gives foreign companies a chance to participate in the work.
On his part, the TARURA Chief Executive Officer, Victor Seff said the agency is going to implement the instructions in collaboration with the Board of contractors.
He said that for as long as they have been working with local contractors, their biggest challenge is to offer a low price when submitting a bid without knowing the reality of the work.
