College of Agricultural Sciences and Fisheries Technology

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Browsing College of Agricultural Sciences and Fisheries Technology by Author "Akiri, Robinson Ikolo"

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    The role of foreign consultancy firms in the planning of forest industrial projects in developing countries, with special reference to the planning of the Arusha Sawmill project in Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 1979) Akiri, Robinson Ikolo
    The role of foreign consultancy firms in the planning of forest industrial projects in developing countries was investigated. The planning and implementation of the Arusha Sawmill Project, Tanzania, was used as a case study. The study evaluated the Project’s feasibility study report, in particular the choice of technology therein, and compared actual performance with that anticipated by the plan. The recommended sawmill capacity was 10,000m3 sawn wood per shift per year as the waste material from a mill of this size would meet a large proportion (67 percent) of the raw material supply needed for the fibreboard plant of Fibreboard Africa Limited in Arusha. There would be no problem of marketing this production, but there could be insufficient logs of the right dimension to meet the sawmill’s demand before 1981. The location of the project in Arusha enabled the relatively large-scale to be integrated with the fibreboard plant. This location is the best from an economic point of view, but the socio-economic impact is relatively poor because the workforce cannot supplement its income through farming. The recommended logging equipment, namely chainsaws, skidders and timber trucks with knuckle boom loaders, are inappropriate under Tanzanian socio-economic environment because cheaper, more labour intensive techniques are available. On the other hand, the D-4 caterpillar, stone chipper and tipper lorry for road construction are suitable, as existing labour intensive techniques are not cheap. The double slabber sawmill with gang resaw was chosen to meet the scale of output planned but simpler sawmill types would have been feasible and more appropriate to local conditions. The actual performance of the project fell short of plan in several ways, the most important being the following. 1.In the first year of operation the raw material supply was 16 percent of that expected. 2. The start of construction was delayed by 18 months, commercial operations by 34 months and full capacity production is expected to be delayed by 48 months. 3. Capital investment increased by 29 percent in constant terms although sales price of sawnwood also increased by 22 percent. 4. The financial yield decreased from 32.0 percent to 19.1 percent and the economic rate of return from 33.7 percent to 17.3 percent. The poor performance of the project at implementation was due to defective planning for which the client, the Tanzania Wood Industry Corporation, and the consultancy firm, Thomesto O. Y of Finland, should share equal responsibility. Better project establishment could be achieved by more active participation of all parties usually engaged in the planning and implementation of projects, especially the client and the consultant. In the Long-run, developing countries should re-direct their efforts to the establishment of simpler, small-scale and labour-intensive industries. This would do much to reduce problems of establishing development projects.