LEGISLATOR
ASKS FOR GOVERNMENT AUDIT, LAND OFFICIALS BLAMED OVER FRAUDULENT PLOTS
ALLOCATION
COME October 28 it will be four years of anxiety and confusion for the residents of Kigamboni Peninsular in Dar es Salaam over their lingering future and well-being of their lovely beach settlements.
Four years ago the government issued a socioeconomic development moratorium over Kigamboni area bringing development standstill to the area for more than 100,000 people. What is interesting is that the government is doing nothing to alleviate the socioeconomic problems resultant from the stoppage and attempts by the people to get a proper account have ended in deaf ears at the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development.
With time have emerged allegations and counter allegations over the illegal government move and resistance is high by the residents over the stalled development that the Member of Parliament Dr Faustine Ndugulile has alleged is rife with corruption and legally flawed.
He accuses some of government officials in the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development of fraud and abuse of office by allocating to themselves some beach and best sites plots in the surveyed areas so that they can sell in the future to prospective developers.
“They are misusing government properties for personal enrichment by allocating themselves project plots in Kigamboni area,” he said.
The Kigamboni multibillion satellite city project ever in Dar es Salaam is expected to cost about Sh11.6 trillion upon completion come in 2032 and would take off this year after the establishment of an authority to be known as Kigamboni Development Agency (KDA) that will be engaged in implementation of its development plan.
Despite the good idea by the government to construct the first ever business hub away from the inner city of Dar es Salaam whereby high class residential apartments and an ultra modern town will be built but some of the culprits in the ministry are working towards frustrating the realization of the CCM party dream.
“Whereas in other places the government is fighting for the people to observe laws in Kigamboni the situation is reverse whereby the government is put into account by the people that it should observe its own laws in implementing the Kigamboni Project,” observes Dr Ndugulile.
The legislator says under government project of 20,000 plots at Kisota ward about 100 prime plots had been secretly allocated to the ministry’s officials and their friends.
“Over 100 plots are in the hands of culprits. I know these people. I would like the government to make an audit. They normally cheat their bosses at the ministry”, he said.
Besides, he said the government has been reluctant to commence the project saying the delays had caused poverty to those who were evicted from the area and the moratorium has exacerbated the problem of unemployment in the area.
“Our people have been doing nothing for about four years now as most of them have been psychologically affected. Their economies are stagnated” he said
Over Sh60 billion has been set aside for the first phase of the new Kigamboni city project in Dar es Salaam the Parliament was told in July this year.
The minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development, Prof Anna Tibaijuka, said the amount is about 59 per cent of her ministry’s proposed Sh101.731 billion budget for the 2012/2013 financial year.
Recurrent expenditure will take up Sh30.731 billion while Sh71 billion will go to development projects. The ministry was unable to implement the project in the last financial year but Prof Tibaijuka assured Parliament that it would take off very soon.
KDA will manage the project. It is expected to cost about Sh11.6 trillion upon completion come 2032.
It will be implemented in three phases. The Sh60 billion allocated will be spent on setting up KDA, conducting property assessment, establishing social services like schools, hospitals and resettling residents and measuring and drawing maps for the proposed town.
The first phase of the project will span the years 2012-2022 while the second will start in 2022-2027, with the third phase set to start in 2027-2032, according to the media report.
“We will use modern techniques to raise about Sh605 billion, which is outside our budget, so that we can implement the project within the set time frame,” Prof Tibaijuka told the parliament.
Due to the expansion of economic activities, Dar Es Salaam is expanding faster than anticipated. In the coming few years, it is expected to expand even more while economic activities will increase. Kigamboni is ideal place for development since it is just across the peninsular only a kilometer from the Centre Business District (CBD). The site area has coral creeks and beaches that most developers want to possess, with large tracks of good, unexploited scenic land.
According to government’s various studies on the presence of unpolluted beaches, the redevelopment of Kigamboni will spearhead economic development and increase the national income. The big picture of the Kigamboni new city master plan is to provide sufficient infrastructure in order that the residents have a better quality of life and to build a core for developing new land demands of Dar Es Salaam, such as residential, commercial, trade and business, industrial, educational, and tourism facilities.
According to Hakiardhi report New Kigamboni City Development Plan is an ambitious project which is situated within the Temeke district and to the south of the city of Dar-es-Salaam. The area of Kigamboni is considered a geographically strategic point where land, air and ocean transportation meet.
The planned project, thus, incorporates a total of five wards, namely - Kigamboni, Mjimwema, Vijibweni, Kibada and Somangila. The total land area for the five wards where this project is to be implemented is 6,494 hectares.
The New City of Kigamboni is expected to be a catalyst for the country‘s economic growth in general and Dar-es-Salaam in particular. The project, which was conceived and is being supervised by the Tanzanian Government Ministry of Lands, seeks to develop the current cited wards in Kigamboni into a thriving new city that supports a population of 500,000 residents, various commercial, educational, social and other important economic interests.
It is also meant to facilitate development of competitive urban services of oriental nature as a way to spur economic growth.
It is also intended to provide the public with better accessible services to beaches and promoting tourism and its associated benefits in the country as well as being a stimulus for investment opportunities.
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