Arusha. Tanzania Union of Tour Guides and Porters has asked the government to intervene and exert pressure on all companies to sign an agreement with them over operations in Mt Kilimanjaro and other conservation areas. Over 20,000 youth work as tour guides, but most of them have no contracts, a situation, which denies them their rights with the government also losing over Sh500 million in tax every year. Tanzania Porters Organisation secretary Loshiye Mollel said despite the labour department in Kilimanjaro Region striving, in cooperation with the Kilimanjaro National Park (Kinapa), to ensure that all tour companies sign contracts with the guides and porters, majority of them are still defiant.
“We have been cooperating with the labour department and Kinapa to verify contracts at the entrances of Mt Kilimanjaro, but some companies are against this system,” he said.
Mr Mollel said some tour companies were dodging to sign agreements because they were required to pay tour guides not less than $20 (about Sh45,000) per day, cooks (Sh34,000) and porters (Sh22,00), the rates approved by the government since 2008.
Kinapa main sponsor Betty Loiboki called on the tour operators to contracts with their workers, saying it is only way to end disputes.
For his part, Tanzania Tour Guides Association (TTGA) chairman Khalifa Msangi, pleaded with the government to stand for their interests, because, he said, they were great ambassadors of the country’s tourism and if they were paid well the government would get taxes too.
However, Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (TATO) Executive Secretary Sirili Akko said the Association had already directed its members to enter into contracts with their workers.
