Maintaining the road to poverty?

IPP Media

By Staff writer Peter Msungu

Last year Mgovano Nyumbi of Mahenge harvested four bags of finger millet, promising good money. He could not get a market.

The produce decomposed, shattering Nyumbi`s dreams of becoming rich through his sweat and toil on the land! He is seriously contemplating whether he should continue with cultivation of the cash crop.

``Motor vehicles cannot reach my farm tucked 35 kilometres away from passable roads. The road to my place is impassable,`` Says Nyumbi.

His cry is echoed by Yuda Mangwada, a peasant farmer: ``I have my five-acre farm at a village, 16 kilometres away from Dabaga in Iringa District, from which point we usually transport our fruits from the farm.

``The only available transport is the usual bicycle and on paths, because the rough and bumpy road is now hardly passable.

We have tonnes and tonnes of harvested fruits which cannot be carried by simple bicycles.

``If our road could be rehabilitated tomorrow, Iringa Municipality will be self sufficient in all types of fruits.``

Mwangwada is rehabilitating the road with the help of his family and a handful of neighbours.

Juma Khalfani Mussa is a timber dealer from Tabora. He has great trouble in taking his products from as far as 20 kilometers to the nearest railway station where he transports them to Tabora for processing.

Vehicles cannot easily reach his area of activity because of poor roads.``At times the cut wood has stayed in the forest for more than two months without being transported to the marketing centres due to transport problems.

By the time transport is available, the wood has gone bad,`` complains Juma, adding: ``Government must know that if our communication network is not deliberately improved, there can be no meaningful development in our country.``

Many people hailing from the rural areas are in agreement that little attention is paid to feeder roads making them inaccessible for most part of the year, and consequently fuelling economic poverty to the masses despite their active engagement in production.

Says Desmond Komba, retired Veterinary officer: ``Many of our agricultural products come from the rural areas where roads are in such pathetic condition that vehicles are unable to take the products to buying centres.``

``Peasant farmers in many remote rural areas have had problems bringing their produce to urban centres due to poor road infrastructure,`` says Nyumbi who says people from his village have asked Mahenge authorities to rehabilitate the roads to allow access to urban markets.

Aloyce Chambaga, a retired Agriculture Instructor, who has settled in Makete District, Iringa Region told the Guardian on Sunday that many roads in the area are so poor that you one cannot afford to send a vehicle in to ferry out produce.

``You have to mobilize people so that they carry your harvests piece- meal to the nearest centre from where they can be taken to the nearest market centre,``Chambaga explains.