Environmental impediments on the CDA factories and negative effects on the implementation of the capital transfer programme

The 1973 Party decision to transfer the capital from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma, also directed the Government to launch the transfer programme to the same effect.Consequently, Ministry of Capital Development (MCD) and Capital Development Authority (CDA) were created to speed up the programme. In this spirit the CDA started a number of ventures including the factories to enhance and locally produce low cost building materials such as stone aggregrates bricks and tiles. Nevertheless, the environmental atmosphere within vrhich these factories had been situated and the conditions underwhich they operate leaves a lot to be desired. Not only are the products from these factories exorbitantly expensive, but some of these factories and their machines are yet to be operational. Thus, the objective of locally producing building materials by these factories far the construction of Dodoma as a new capital at minimum cost is therefore increasingly frustrated. Consequently, the shift of the national capital from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma is progressing at a very low pace contrary to the Party and Government expectations. This negative contribution of these factories to the new capital due to its unoperation and poor performance is caused by the surrounding hostile environment, both national as well as international which is unconducive to the provision of the required inputs and services to these factories. These included the insufficient availability of resources in terms of local funds and foreign exchange; local raw materials and skilled manpower; acquisition of some unsuitable and inappropriate machinery from the international environment and the inadequacy of infrastructural support in terms of electric water supplies, telecommunication services and transport. While it has not been possible to quantitatively measure the extent of the CDA factories contribution failure to the implementation of the construction of Dodorna their negative contribution has been very significant to an extent that today after more than ten years the capital town has barely taken off.