Trade minister issues ultimatum for contractor to handover TBS building

Dar es Salaam. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment Mr Innocent Bashungwa on Friday August 31 gave a one month ultimatum to a contractor to complete the new Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) building.

The Minister made the directive when he visited the TBS headquarters in Dar es Salaam and noted poor progress in the construction process.

He said he wasn’t impressed by construction process so far. He told the contractor,   BH Ladwa Construction Ltd, to complete by October 1st and handover the building.

“The contractor said the project was completed by 95 per cent but after my visit I realized it was not true. When I come here in October I want to see the labs are in the new building,” he said

The construction of the new building started in 2018 and was expected to be completed this August at a cost of Sh19.3 billion.

However Mr Bashungwa clarified that the focus of the government to expand the labs was to reduce time for sample testing from seven days to one.

He said the government cannot emphasize on industrialization when business is delayed.

However he warned TBS staff against bad attitude when handling complaints from the public; especially in relation to poor customer care.

The TBS director general, Dr Athuman Ngenya said all the directives by the minister would be worked on.

Meanwhile the engineer Alex Msuna said, “…the infrastructure we use in construction consume a lot of electrical power. We lacked power and that’s why we didn’t finish on time.”