Elevated to townships, but still manned like villages
The picture on the right shows Madizini Village after gaining a township status while the other depicts the village before promotion. New findings have shown that delay in upgrading villages that have qualified to become townships have affected infrastructure development and social services delivery. Photo | file
What you need to know:
New findings show that many villages that have qualified for township status are still run under a village setup.
Dar es Salaam. Nineteen years since it was declared a small-township, Madizini Village in Mvomero District, Morogoro Region, is still under a village leadership, with unplanned settlements, a situation that has left the county’s administration and its residents in development dilemma.
Mr Goodluck Mugeta, Madizini Village Executive Officer (VEO), says the village’s population of over 18,000 is set to increase significantly as residents continue to establish unplanned settlements. Yet there are no plans to formalise the land.
“I think the authorities are afraid of our status as a township. They feel if we have our own council they [Mvomero District Council] will lose revenue,” says Mr Mugeta from Morogoro Region where researchers were disseminating findings on rural-urban transformation. Revenues collected by the village, a home to Mtibwa Sugar Estates Limited, one of the largest sugar companies in the country, accounts for 65 percent of earnings of Mvomero District, data show.
Mr Mugeta believes that the fear of losing revenues is unfounded and can be resolved through a modality that would ensure proper distribution of revenues as the urge authorities to intervene and formalise the administrative status and land planning.
“We are still recognised as a village and there seems to be no hurry in planning infrastructure like roads and other amenities,” says Mr Mugeta.
“With over 18,000 residents and increasing business activities, management of solid waste has become a huge challenge to us. There is no budget for garbage collection in a village setting.”
Ms Lambeta Kuhanga, a retired worker at Mtibwa Sugar Estates Limited, says Madizini Village started expanding in 2000s when people thronged the area to explore economic fortunes provided by the sugar factory and rice farming. “This village is likely to grow further than it is now if the government formalises this township and its administration. There is a booming business and potential for growth here,” she says.
A former VEO, Mr Khalifa Hamadi, says the price of land in the village has gone up in recent years. In the early 2000, he says, land was cheap and available. “One could get half an acre of land at between Sh500,000 and Sh1 million. Today, the same piece of land costs Sh5 million and above,’’ he says. He warns if the government does not intervene now, it was likely incur huge costs of compensating residents in future for creation of infrastructure and social services such as water, electricity, roads and hospitals.
Researchers who conducted a study on emerging villages in urban cities say rapid-growing areas like Madizini, Kibaigwa and others in Dodoma and Morogoro regions should be planned in advance to stimulate development. The ministry of Lands has in recent years launched ambitious initiatives of formalising lands and issuing title deeds to land owners across the country.
But the study conducted by the Sokoine University of Agriculture (Sua) has found that many villages in the country have qualified for township status but they are still run under a village setup.
“This has led to stagnation of economic development,” says the study.
The study, titled: Rural-Urban Transformation (RUT) Economic Dynamics, Mobility and Governance of Emerging Urban Centres for Poverty Reduction which started in 2015 and ended in December last year was conducted in four areas including Ilula, Madizini, Igowole and Kibaigwa. I was funded by the Danish International Development Agency (Danida) Fellowship Centre(DFC).
The study’s lead researcher Dr Evelyne Lazaro says: “…emerging townships are being run as villages, the whole leadership becomes like the village, issues like healthcare, school and waste disposal services are managed in a village setup, this retards development.”
“We were motivated to do this research due to the fact many townships in the country have not been planned. As a result, they are dirty and stagnated. So we advise the government to put a special focus on fast-growing villages and formalise them to avert future inconveniences and wastage of resources,” says Mr Lazaro.
The delay in upgrading these villages to urban system will mean social services like water, electricity and roads will not come at a capacity that comes with a township.
The study recommends that councils and the local government to work with administrations of the expanding villages and turn them into townships so that provision of social services reflects the actual status of the areas.
