Launching the 300m/- Contractors Assistance Fund (CAF) and officially opening the Contractor’s Annual Workshop in Dar es Salaam on May 28 President Mkapa directed the Ministry of Works and the Contractors Registration Board (CRB), to clear up what he described as the mess in the construction industry. “The government I head is the biggest contractors’ service user. I would like to tell you in black and white, that your sector is rotten. The government has lost patience”.

“Change your attitude and performance record, because jobs that you do cannot be hidden from the public eye. This has been proved during my up-country tours where there is an outcry that public funds have been swindled, following rapid deterioration of recently completed road works and other infrastructure”. The President said he was impressed by the measures so far taken by the Board to clean up the industry, including the axing of 1,164 poorly performing contractors.

Responding to a request by local contractors that the government should enact laws which would limit foreign contractors when it came to bidding for some projects the President said: “To me, enacting hostile legal mechanisms against foreign firms, won’t make local firms stronger, more honest or more competent”.