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No. 00267 |
April 26 - May 2, 2003 |
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Arusha: the Unidentifiable TownBy lute wa lutengano Driving along the Nairobi road has always been quite an experience. The whole stretch from Sakina to Kimandolu is littered with signposts of precarious stance and announcing various services and products available in the adjacent buildings. There are signposts for traditional healers, timber products, hair salons, food kiosks, medical clinics, tailors, etc. However, a friend of mine, from the land Nelson Mandiba Mandela, was quick to notice that almost 75 per cent of the signposts are for beer groceries and pubs. He wondered loudly whether that was the biggest pre-occupation of Arushans. I do not have the statistics, but it looks like that may be the case. The flood of signposts in the area is quite an eyesore. Most of them are not neat, their quality is very much wanting and their grammatical mistakes are quite amusing. They also come in all sizes, some are as short as a mongoose others are as tall as the Eiffel Tower. However, there are few signposts which are quite decent in quality and message and actually assist any visitor to Arusha to reach important destinations like the Arusha International Conference Centre; the Tribunal for Rwanda; several tourist hotels; educational institutions; government offices and the like. I do not know what is going on but suddenly all the signposts, useful or not useful, have been crossed with big red marks which mean they are not wanted. I approached authorities at the Municipal Council expressing concern at this drastic decision. To my surprise they said they were also alarmed adding that that may be the work of another government organ, the Ministry of Works, which owns the road. "Can’t you see that even our own signposts urging Arushans not to throw waste alongside the road have been ‘X’ed", complained one official. Now that is an interesting development. I thought government agencies and institutions handling a similar problem, have a way of finding solutions through a common approach to it. In normal circumstances they are supposed to sit down together, identify the problem and find a decent common solution. In this case, it seems, this was not done. Before it is too late I like to call upon the relevant authorities to meet and solve the problem, before Arusha is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the most "unidentifiable town" in the world. **** Before I rest my pen I wish to recall that a few months ago I commended the local government for encouraging the transformation of several Arusha roadside areas into horticultural centres. Indeed you can just buy any type of flower or tree plant from now evergreen areas. Keep it up! But this does not absolve you from having turned the regional commissioner’s office into one big national park. The gardens surrounding the building compete with the bushes in Tarangire or Serengeti. The same, though to a lesser extent, applies to the offices of the Municipal Council. Even the gardens separating the RC’s office and the former Barracuda watering hole are hopelessly unkempt. Can’t you come up with a decent fence around your offices and beautiful green lawns in this very heart of Arusha? ****** The other day I read in the Daily News, a government owned paper for that matter, that the Danish Government has given the Arusha Sustainable Programme (SAP) some 2 billion/-. The funds are to facelift the town, a project that will involve planting of trees "around homesteads, along municipality roads and in valleys." Really! We must be out of our minds to solicit for funds from Denmark to plant trees around our homesteads. In the meantime I am waiting to see what happens. |
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Last modified:
April 25, 2003. Webmaster: WDJMallya |
