EDITORIAL: FLY ON THE WALL : Disasters galore, waiting to happen…

We in Tanzania will continue to move from disaster to disaster because, in our warped thinking, God wants it that way.

I regularly use public transport from Morogoro to Dar es Salaam and back. In my travel sojourns, one key constant confluence is the unholy alliance between passengers, bus crews (drivers and conductors) and the road traffic police.

It is difficult to countenance the disasters we play Russian Roulette with because, one: we have accepted without any shadow of doubt that it is the right of bus crews to ‘eat where they are tethered;’ and, two: those saying NO to this value-chain of incestuous relationships deserves purgatory because they are denying ‘man-given right to life.’

Does that sound familiar… or have I ‘lost you?’ Let me narrate the latest incident. In theory, take a bus designed to carry, say, 56 seated passengers. That should include the crew: the driver and the conductor, whose seat should be nearest to the entrance/exit.

Instead, the bus operators put hapless passengers in the conductor’s seat, as well as on the flatbed under which the engine is located.

Then, after traffic police have checked the buses at the departure point, the crew drive off and away – only to pick up a more passengers en route who are willing, able and ready to travel standing. Their fares are then shared among the bus crew and traffic police of dubious probity…

Assuming the crew take on an extra 10 passengers en route at Sh8,000 a head each way, the driver can earn up to Sh50,000 after deducting ‘facilitation fees’ for the other participants in this unholy alliance.

In my latest jaunt, the policeman who entered the bus at Chalinze was engrossed in discussions with the driver, explaining how and why the rule of ‘seated passengers only’ is not fair.

“Look at how there are no enough buses,” the driver protested, claiming that “intending travelers will be stranded. In any case, we all need money. For instance, I am now going to buy meat because I am hungry. I have been working along this highway without any problems...”

The police officer told anyone who would listen that it is inevitable for bus crews to carry excess passengers, collect money and hand out bribes.

That is how the value chain works. It’s a co-existence thing; a balance of nature as they see it.

The driver was meanwhile going on and on about how he has been able to build rental houses with the proceeds raised from ‘vichwa’ – passengers over and above the registered carrying capacity of the bus – and whoever wants to deprive them of ‘vichwa’ is heartless and deserved the wrath of God…!

Let me take you back to the bus terminal procedures. The ground crews take fares and register names of all passengers; this is as it should be. The excess 10 passengers are never recorded anywhere.

What this means is that, should an accident occur en route, only those recorded on the list shall be legally eligible for insurance compensation, period.

And – God forbid – if the bus is incinerated, the undocumented passengers may not be identified.

We have simply used this example of passenger buses to demonstrate that, as long as we have this unholy alliance, we shall continue to have ‘MV Nyerere-type’ of disasters.

The passengers who travel on overloaded buses, the businessmen who cut corners in shady transactions, the government employees who shirk their responsibilities all are doomed.

So, too, are the whole kit and caboodle of us who are complicit in this ‘murder most foul!’

We have continued to do the wrong thing under the guise of salaries being too low; we are late for where we are going; there are not enough busses or even worse… But, remember: only God plans the day we arrive in the world – and the day we exit.

As long as we continue to blame a blameless God, we allow ourselves to mourn every so often for disasters that we could do something to prevent.

But, I nearly forgot… Mourning in fake unity is our national pastime.