SMEs digest: Traders in agony at muddy Dar mart

Dar es Salaam. Accessing Mabibo Fresh Food Market is increasingly becoming difficult, with customers required to rent gumboots for Sh1,200.

The market - popular as ‘Mahakama ya Ndizi’ - is one of the markets on which thousands of Dar es Salaam dwellers depend for their daily needs.

However, poor infrastructure provides an opportunity for some people during the rainy season to make a killing.

“This market is helpful, but very unpleasant during the rainy season. You’ve to put on gumboots from home - otherwise there are people who make lots of money by loaning the boots at your cost,” said Ms Efrazia Gofrey (26), a customer who was trying to bargain the cost of renting the gumboots at the entrance into the place.

Ms Efrazia, who resides at Manzese, runs a fruit shop near her home whose capital roughly stands at Sh120,000.

She always reaches the market around 6am and leaves after half an hour. But, it was different on that rainy day.

“I spent more than 15 minutes struggling to get the gumboots to enter the market. I also spent more than 50 minutes walking around to buy fruits and get out.

“The place is filthy from poor sewage infrastructure and organisation,” she said.

The only good thing for her in the market is the cheap prices of commodities and the short distance from her shop.

However, the wet season is not a challenge for Swaumu Abeid (45), but an opportunity to make money when the market is dirty and muddy.

She earns Sh1,000 per a pair of gumboot she rents to customers and Sh200 for washing them.

“It is an opportunity for me because with my 18 pairs of gumboots I earn up to Sh45, 000 a day, excluding washing people,” she said.

It is a her most paying business as she spends Sh12,000 to buy a pair of gumboots and rent them to customers.

During dry seasons Ms Swaumu sells re-packaged water in plastic bottles and nylon bags, popularly known in ki-Swahili as Maji ya Kandoro.

The Mabibo Fresh Food market accommodates more than 3,500 traders, including agents and cargo carriers, comprising wholesalers and retailers of bananas, yams, tomatoes, vegetables and other varieties of fruits and vegetables.

Ms Gertrude Mwakipesile (47), who has been a wholesaler of raw banana at the market since 2012, finds it difficult to get a safe place to store her products.

“As you can see, the area is covered by water and mud. I don’t even have a place to store my products,” she said.

The market, according to her, does not have storage rooms to keep the products, making it difficult to expand her business.

“I plan to expand my capital to 1,200 bunches of bananas a week from the current 600 bunches, however, I don’t have the place to store them,” she said.

The market was established in 2002 following an agreement between traders and Urafiki Textile Tanzania China Friendship Textile Company Ltd (Urafiki) where the two sides enjoyed the profits and some shares were sent to Kinondoni municipality.

A market leader for fruit division, Mr Winfred Richard, said the market was under the leadership of the traders until 2016 when the Ubungo Municipal Council took it over.

The Ubungo Municipality introduced some charges and fees to traders, ending up collecting Sh120 million per month, according to him.

“Every trader was paying Sh400 a day, as daily service charges and Sh15,000 per month as monthly frame rental costs,” he said.

The municipality, he said, promised to improve the market’s infrastructures, but nothing changed until the traders tried to demand it back.

In 2018, the Ubungo Municipality concluded that the traders of Mahakama ya Ndizi market should leave the place, but they resisted.

“We were told to move to the Kigogo Dampo area, but we resisted, fearing that our business and capital would go in vain at the new place,” Mr Richard said.

In late October 2020, the late President John Magufuli returned the market under the management of the traders during one of his Presidential election campaigns.

“After getting back the control of the market, we eliminated all the rents and charges we were paying to the Ubungo municipality,” he said.

They introduced a Sh300 daily fee for every trader - an amount which covers cleaning, security and electricity charges.

However, traders are planning to invite local and foreign investors to modernise the market.

“At least Sh6 billion is needed to modernise the market.

“The amount is too big for us (traders) to provide at the moment,” he said.

He assured the investors that they would get their money back on the back of the good business which goes on at the area of more than 35,000 traders and more than 13,000 customers visiting the market each and every day.

“The Ubungo municipal, for instance, collected up to Sh120 million per month.

“I am sure that even the investors will get profit when they decide to invest their money here,” Mr Richard said.

Mr Richard said the traders are also seeking the audience with the President Samia Suluhu Hassan to talk on how the government can help them.

“We want to meet President Samia and tell her our plan and how she can help us. The government, itself, can invest here or it might find the investors on our behalf,” he noted.

Mr Hassan Habibu, a trader of ripe bananas said they want investors to rebuild the market, making it easy for customers and vehicles entering the market without causing much congestion.

He also wants the infrastructures which will make sure that the business is healthy and sounding even during wet seasons and during hot seasons.

“Customers find it difficult to enter this place during rainy seasons due to poor infrastructure, which leaves the whole area muddy,” he noted.

He wants the investors to build cold-rooms, which will be used to store perishable fruits.