By: Joseph Muhozi, Dar es Salaam

The Government has set aside four road construction projects for local contractors with some segments especially for female contractors, and has stressed the importance of integrity in the implementation of works, TPJ can report.

This development was revealed by Chief Engineer Eng. Mtemi Simeon, in the remarks he made while representing the Minister of Works, at the inauguration of the Third Symposium and Exhibition for student engineers in Dar es Salaam.

Eng. Simeon told the symposium that was titled "The Contribution of Young Engineers to Sustainable Development through Innovation," that the Government had made a deliberate decision to set aside four projects with a total length of 200 kilometers for local contractors and 20 kilometers of road exclusively designated for female contractors, whereby each segment of five kilometers would be up for competition among women-owned companies.

According to the chief engineer, the decision highlighted the gist of President Samia Suluhu Hassan's directive to increase the involvement of local contractors in construction projects as well as her acknowledgement that while some local engineers have made innovative contributions to ongoing infrastructure projects efforts were needed to instill discipline and integrity from the early stages of engineering education.

Furthermore, Eng. Simeon revisited the Government’s decision to revise the Public Procurement Act to raise the project value threshold for exclusive awards to local contractors from 10bn/- to 50bn/-, which was endorsed by Parliament recently, saying it was driven by a desire to see that local engineers enhance their consultancy and local firms' capabilities in order to compete effectively with foreign counterparts.

The symposium was organized by the Young Engineers and Students Chapter at the national level and attracted participants from secondary schools and universities.