PM issues ultimatum to un-serviced cars at TEMESA

PRIME Minister Kassim Majaliwa has directed all public institutions that have their motor vehicles parked at the Tanzania Electrical, Mechanical and Electronics Services Agency (TEMESA) area, pending maintenance to ensure that come October 30, 2023, they are serviced.

“All the defective cars must be serviced and removed from TEMESA garages come October 30, this year,” Mr Majaliwa demanded.

He issued the directive on Monday when handing over equipment and 17 motor vehicles to the labour department and 13 others to Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OSHA) respectively, at an event that was among others attended by all top leaders and executives from the Prime Minister’s Office, (Policy, Coordination, and Parliamentary Affairs) as well as Prime Minister’s Office Labour, Youth, Employment and Persons with Disability.

At the event to hand over equipment and motor vehicles valued at 4.3bn/-, the Prime Minister asked TEMESA to work by considering professionalism.

Mr Majaliwa further added that apart from 30 motor vehicles that were handed over yesterday, the government will add 28 more to regional offices of the labour department and OSHA.

“The government will continue intensifying capacities of the departments and institutions so that they discharge their duties efficiently including supplying working equipment.

In the 2023/24 financial year, the Prime Minister’s Office, Labour, Youth, Employment and Persons with Disabilities plans to procure 28 other motor vehicles, whereas eight will be handed over to the labour department, while the remaining 20 will be handed over to OSHA,” he added.

According to him, the 30 motor vehicles that were handed over yesterday were bought by using internal revenues adding that they were part of President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s pledge she delivered during the 2023 May Day celebrations held in Morogoro Region.

“The major objective is to strengthen institutional capacities of all government departments and institutions, so that they can deliver quality services to our people, workers, employers and investors in general,” insisted Mr Majaliwa.

The Premier also underscored the need to treat the new vehicles with care as well as ensuring that regular maintainance was conducted accordingly.

He also tasked heads of departments in all public institutions to ensure that they employ professional drivers.

He further warned some unscrupulous drivers who were misusing public resources especially fuel where some of them were forging longer distances so that they get more fuel that end up being sold cheaply in the streets or colluding with fuel stations to get money.

Equally, the PM raised a red flag against drivers who were blatantly violating traffic laws, insisting that driving a public owned vehicle was not a guarantee to violate traffic laws.

He also asked public servants to refrain from staying in offices instead, go to wananchi to work on their complaints and problems facing them.

Earlier, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Labour, Youth, Employment and Persons with Disabilities, Professor Joyce Ndalichako said that the labour department’s working efficiency had gone down because it only had eight motor vehicles.

She said that with the new equipment and motor vehicles OSHA and the labour department of the ministry would increase pace in the course of discharging their duties.

At the event, OSHA Chief Executive, Khadija Mwenda thanked the government for recognising the importance of her institution in serving Tanzanians, thus providing equipment and vehicles, as well as providing 18 more employees to the institution.