Dar es Salaam – Houses along Mto wa Ng’ombe in Tandale were being demolished on Monday in an operation authorities have linked to flood prevention, as residents told ITV Tanzania that they had received little warning or had not been paid before losing parts of their homes.
The clearance follows a recent series of official inspections of the river, where the government has focused on waste, blocked access routes and settlements exposed to flooding. Kinondoni District Commissioner Saad Mtambule said people in vulnerable locations had been told to leave and that demolitions had begun.
For some households, however, the operation has produced a dispute over its process as much as its purpose. One resident, Amina Said Amani, said officials had initially told her that her house was outside the project, but that it was later marked for partial demolition despite her claim that she had received no compensation.
“They came suddenly and demolished,” Amina said, adding that she had sought answers from local leaders and Kinondoni Municipal Council. Annet Nelson Kyoga similarly told ITV that a mark was placed on her home on the day it was demolished, and that she had not been paid.
But others said the river-valley clearance was part of a longer-running government programme and that some owners had previously received payments and time to prepare. Fidolini Mtungoji, for example, said he had received compensation during an earlier phase about eight years ago but did not know what entitlement, if any, applied to the current demolition.
Compensated
When he visited the area on Oct. 12, State Minister in the Vice President’s Office for Union and Environment Hamad Masauni said the government had compensated people to leave a seven-metre strip along the river so that waste-collection vehicles could reach nearby communities.
READ MORE: TMA Raises Alarm Over ‘Very Strong’ El Niño as Vuli Rains Loom
He said some people had taken the money but remained, preventing contractors from passing through. Masauni described the work as more than a seasonal response. “El Niño comes and goes,” he said, arguing that river protection and waste collection must be continuous rather than wait for a leader’s visit or the onset of rain.
On August 18, the Tanzania Meteorological Authority warned that a very strong El Niño could bring above-normal to normal Vuli rainfall to the northern coast, including Dar es Salaam, from October through December, with rain potentially extending into January 2027.
The authority listed flooding, water contamination, damaged roads and bridges among the likely hazards, and urged institutions to strengthen infrastructure and act on early warnings.
In Tandale, Vice President Deogratius Ndejembi had ordered the removal of rubbish choking the river and improvements to crossings before the rainy season.
Ndejembi’s September 19 message combined enforcement with service delivery. He called for households to store waste properly and for councils to provide places for collection, while urging public education before a kamata kamata, or catch-and-punish, approach to waste offences.
A separate drive
The river operation sits alongside a separate drive to reorganise Dar es Salaam’s informal economy. Regional Commissioner Albert Chalamila has given traders operating on Kariakoo roads until October 24 to remove tables and goods from unauthorised spaces, saying the aim is to restore order and move traders towards formal business premises.
READ MORE: Inside Tanzania’s El Niño Emergency Plan
During an October 7 visit to designated trading sites in Mbezi, Chalamila said authorities expected small-scale traders to grow into larger, tax-paying businesses and said the government planned to identify formal trading areas. A councillor at the event said additional stalls were needed to make that transition workable.
The two campaigns have different immediate targets: Mto wa Ng’ombe is being cleared as a river and flood-risk corridor, while the Kariakoo action concerns roads and unauthorised trade. But both affect people whose homes, customers or income depend on scarce and contested urban space.
A 2024 Financial Sector Deepening Tanzania analysis describes street vending as a major source of income for women and young people in urban areas, while noting that traders already face weak infrastructure, harassment, limited finance and weather-related disruption.
A 2022 study of 50 Dar es Salaam vendors found that evictions and relocations were harder to absorb for traders with limited savings and weak institutional support.
The city has a more structured example in its separate Msimbazi Basin Development Project, which pairs flood-control works with compensation, resettlement choices and livelihood restoration.
READ MORE: Strong Economic Growth, Uneven Gains: Why Tanzania’s Household Incomes Lag?
The project says 90 per cent of households expected to be resettled earn income in the informal economy, mostly through petty trade and vending, making location and income protection central to the programme. The Chanzo couldn’t find a comparable published compensation and livelihood-restoration plan for the Mto wa Ng’ombe operation.
The outstanding questions that residents of Tandale raised as the clearance continued are which households and structures are covered, what payments or notice apply in each case, and how families required to leave the corridor will be accommodated.
