Furniture industry for windfall business

Local investors in the furniture industry are set to benefit, thanks to the government decision to procure all furniture domestically, with the views of boosting small scale entrepreneurs and scale up economic growth.

The government passed a policy, obliging all ministries and departments to buy locally made furniture which are durable and provide employment opportunities to the domestic manufacturers.

Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Saada Salim Mkuya said in an interview with the ‘Daily News’ in Dar es Salaam that the government was determined to ensure procurement of local made furniture starts effectively in this fiscal year.

“Procuring local made furniture is one of the government efforts to cut down expenditures, its implementation therefore is of paramount importance,” she noted. She said the purchase of foreign made fixtures was expensive, with most of them being of low quality and subjecting the government into heavy losses.

Ms Mkuya added that the public procurement of various goods and services should always adhere to the value for money as well as render the expected satisfaction. “The public sector depends on the range of goods and services which they procure to deliver their core services.

The goods and services must be of right quality, cost effective and available whenever needed,” she noted. The furniture sector employs a large number of youths but most of them are disappointed due to unaddressed hurdles including market unreliability.

Delays in implementing the government decision to buy locally manufactured furniture have impeded the subsector’s growth and contributions to the overall economic development.

The Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Dr William Mgimwa was recently quoted as saying the procurement of locally made furniture will be a fundamental milestone in building capacity of local manufacturers and would contribute significantly to boosting individual and national incomes.

However, poor working tools, capital deficiency, lack of creativity and limited market opportunities are some of the key impediments that hinder the progress of local furniture makers. As a result, the huge market for furniture is flooded with imported substandard carpentry products.

Source: Daily News, reported by Sebastian Mrindoko, from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

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