Traders fault Dar cleaning order

Dar es Salaam. Operators of hotels, restaurants and butcheries in Dar es Salaam are losing huge amounts of money to an order restricting them from opening businesses before 9am every Saturday to give room for city cleaning.

They view the directive ‘not business friendly’ and want authorities to review the order, which they claim has been robbing them 16 hours of doing business a month and nearly 200 hours a year.

Regional Commissioner Paul Makonda launched a cleanliness campaign for Dar es Salaam in May 2016 and directed that no business should be allowed to operate before 9am every Saturday to allow residents to engage in the activity.

Local government officials are robustly implementing the directive and have been imposing fines of up to Sh200, 000 on people caught violating the instruction.

They conduct routine checks in their streets to ensure businesses are not opened on Saturday until the exercise is over. But owners of hotels, restaurants, butcheries as well as other perishables businesses are calling for a special consideration for enterprises with high operating expenses and a high potential for waste like theirs.

“The impact is devastating on our businesses... we deal with meat so by the time we are allowed to open shops many potential customers have gone,” says Mr Mohamed Shamji, owner of Green House Butchery Limited, a meat shop situated along Jamhuri Street in the city centre.

“It is not that we are opposing the initiative but it has to be considerate to some businesses like butcheries and pharmacies. Do I really have to close my business for four hours or five hours for a cleaning exercise that takes only half an hour?” Asks Mr Shamji.

He says the four hours of not operating were affecting his income that he was considering to cut salaries to a few youths he has employed so that his business continues to operate.

The question many of these operators are posing to authorities is “where does the city service levy, waste collection fees and a string of other taxes go that they are forced to close business and do cleaning?”

A manager at a busy City Squire Restaurant, Salum Abbas, says they were roughly losing up to Sh 100, 000 in every hour of suspending operations.

He says unlike weekdays, on weekends workers prefer to come to the city centre early around 7am to finish off their work and leave the city around 10am.

“I am not proposing abolishment of the order but they should come up with a fair and business friendly arrangement. We, for instance, do cleaning on Fridays but that doesn’t make any difference. They should accept the fact that this is office zone and not residential area,” he says.

He believes that the duty to ensure city streets are clean rests with city fathers while businesses are obliged to pay the necessary taxes which cater for cleaning.

Mr Abbas’s views were supported by Break Point restaurant manager Leonard Maro, who says it unintelligible that they pay necessary taxes that cater for city cleanliness and yet they are forced to close businesses to clean.

“The idea is good...what they are supposed to do is conduct routine inspections and not force us to close business.

“We lose around Sh250, 000 to work, which frankly speaking, is supposed to be done by municipal authorities. We pay city service levy…we pay garbage collection fee and the people who clean our street every day,” he says.

He called for a new arrangement that would consider the nature of their businesses.

Ashura Harun, an attendant at Zanzibar Hotel in Zanaki street, says: “Closing a restaurant even for half an hour means you lose many customers because by the time they are allowed to open breakfast time has passed.”

For Ms Harun, the cleanliness exercise should take place at least once in a month. Mr Sherali Rashid who operates Sherali Tea Room along Mkunguni Street says the directive has adversely affected his business and he counts losses every time cleanliness day arrives.

“The duty of ensuring general cleanliness is theirs (city authorities) because they charge us taxes and levies, that’s their job because we pay waste collection fees! That money should go to cleaning the city too. After all we normally do cleanliness on Fridays because a hotel or restaurant opens at 12am,” he say.

He claims to lose up to Sh 40, 000 an hour for not operating.

Dar es Salaam City Mayor Isaya Mwita says he has received complaints from some businessmen, saying there are opinions for a review of the arrangement by looking at what other cities are doing on cleanliness.

“I have heard of the complaints, this new government is trying to apply every approach to do things but some are difficult to implement, so we are still considering some proposals on this issue,” he said.

While restaurant owners claim to suffer losses to the instruction, operators of other businesses in the city centre like commodity shops, clothes, jewelry say they do not have much reasons to complain because most of their businesses open beyond 9am on Saturdays.

“It doesn’t have much effect on my business, my customers know very well that we don’t open business before 9am on Saturdays. When the government comes with such orders we have no option but to abide by them,” says Rajabut, owner of an auto machine shop at Nyamwenzi and Makunganya street junction.

He was supported by Gulam Abdul, a neighbor from the next shop who sells cooking oil and other food commodities in bulk.

“Operators of hotels and butcheries are the ones feeling the pinch over the directive and I think authorities should be more flexible with them. We normally open business after 9 am on Saturdays,” he says.

Mr Abdul Khan, who runs a jewelry shop opposite the Kariako market, says they have nothing to lose with the order. “Two or three hours a week is not bad, it is good for our health. After all we open our businesses after 9 am on Saturdays. If you don’t instill some fear on people they won’t do anything,” he says.