Mbeya — Bajaji drivers and vendors have agreed to resume work under a temporary government arrangement after disruption and protests in Kabwe put drivers, traders and passengers at the centre of Mbeya’s plan for urban order.

On October 22, Prof Riziki Shemdoe, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for Regional Administration and Local Government, ordered a 14-day review of bajaji and daladala routes and access to a planned petty-traders’ market at the former airport. 

The agreement ended the immediate stoppage but left the permanent arrangement to a team including drivers, traders, the Mbeya City Council, LATRA and the Regional Commissioner’s Office.

“The team should tour the whole of Mbeya city to establish where bajaji will operate, where daladala will pass, and to prepare transport routes” to the future market, Shemdoe said. The 14-day review, rather than a final plan, was the latest documented outcome on October 23.

Directive sparks dispute

The conflict followed an October 12 directive by Mbeya Regional Commissioner Jumanne Sagini giving the City Council seven days to allocate formal, serviced spaces for traders and bajaji operators. 

READ MORE: Drivers’ Strike Disrupts Long-Distance Travel Across Tanzania 

The council said bajaji would be directed outside the TANZAM highway, while 1,715 traders would be arranged in Old Airport, Kabwe and Mwanjelwa. Sagini said the exercise was intended to reduce congestion, improve cleanliness and road safety, and create a more orderly city, not to take away jobs. 

“The government’s goal is to plan orderly cities that stimulate development, but we must not stop businesses or remove people’s employment,” Mr Sagini said at the October 12 meeting.

Enforcement began on October 19, Bajaji drivers were forced to clear the area. Vendors who operate at Kabwe area were also barred from the area, prompting traders and Bajaji drivers to join hands in the struggle against the government directive.

“We haven’t been given any proper place to work, and then the city militia come and seize our goods and dump them. How am I supposed to survive? I’m raising children here, I’m paying their school fees, Erica Mlembe, a vendor at Kabwe area complained on October 19, 2026.

“Today you’ve thrown away my goods, so where do I go now? Should I become a prostitute, or a thief, just to get capital to start again? Please help us. This is our country too; we have nowhere else to go,” She added.

“You are telling Bajaji drivers not to use the main road; where should they pass? How am I supposed to get to Isyesye? I’ve only made it as far as Kabwe, and my family is still at home waiting for their mother to bring anything at all for them to eat,” Mlembe lamented. “But then the militia confronted me. How am I going to live? What am I supposed to do? And it’s not just me. This is the cry of many people.”

From October 19, 2026, bus transport commonly known as daladala was also facing a challenge, as Bajaji drivers were attacking them with stones. This made the morning of October 20, 2026, to have only motorcycles as the main transport, and people were walking around as the transport fee was also skyrocketing.

The crisis intensified as Bajaji Drivers jointly with vendors were holding demonstrations across the city; by evening the Regional Commissioner, Jumanne Sagini said in an interview with TBC that the drivers were allowed to use the TAZAM highway.

On October 21, 2026, the crisis impacted heavily on passengers with some private vehicles also now ferrying passengers. Some reported paying between SH 5,000 and Sh15,000 for alternative rides amid a shortage of transport, while others said higher travel costs were making it harder for people running small businesses.

As the crisis heighted, Mbeya Town member of parliament Patrick Mwalunenge met with the Bajaji drivers and vendors; Bajaji drivers had denounced their leaders, so individual drivers presented their case.

“There is no peace that comes from the barrel of a gun. Any peace in the world comes from sitting at the negotiating table and understanding one another. Our request to the government is simple: let us use the main road,” one of the Bajaji Drivers, Damas Erasto Mwakalinga told the MP amidst the packed crowd.

“Why are we asking for this? Here in Mbeya, our geography isn’t like other regions’; you can’t compare Mbeya with Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam has plenty of side roads and enough major roads; they have good infrastructure. Here in Mbeya, we have one main road, this one right here, and all of us depend on it,” He added.

Mwakalinga made a case that it’s trucks that bring traffic jams and not Bajaji, and reminded the government of the late President Magufuli’s campaign promise to build a lane for trucks.

READ MORE: Coercion Is Not Negotiation: Tanzania’s Drivers’ Strike and the High Cost of One-Sided Rule-Making

After listening to their plea, Mwalunenge proposed five of the drivers and vendors to meet the government side, which led to a reaction from the crowd, shouting ‘Wote, Wote’, meaning all of them should go.

Another issue which the crowd was singing from the beginning is the release of individuals arrested by the police. Since October 20, 2026, some cases were being held until night time, where individuals were fined or sentenced to a jail term over the protest.

Enforcement to talks

Sagini said some dissatisfied drivers had attacked transport operators who continued to provide service, and said police had increased security.

In separate reported police action, 19 drivers were arrested on October 19,2026 were convicted the next day of causing disorder and sentenced to one month in prison, according to Mbeya Regional Police Commander Benjamin Kuzaga. 

Police also alleged that eight of the arrested damaged 11 buses or daladala, a case the statement said was continuing. Police also explained 15 others were arrested on the following days, and 11 were sentenced to four months in prison or to pay Sh. 400,000 fine while four of them were sentenced to one month or pay 200,000 fine after pleading guilty.

READ MORE: Twenty-Five Years of Struggle: Transport Workers And the ‘Rights of the Wretched’ in Neoliberal Tanzania

Shemdoe’s intervention shifted the immediate response from enforcement to a negotiated review. He said inadequate consultation with Bajaji drivers had partly caused the dispute, and drivers’ representative Damas Mwakalinga said the group was ready to cooperate on safety and peace measures as the review proceeds.

For traders, the question is not only where they will be placed but whether customers and public transport will reach them. A vegetable trader at Kabwe bus stand had asked for a suitable business environment and easy access for customers, an issue now incorporated into the review team’s mandate.

Damas Erasto Mwakalinga, who had earlier spoken at the MP’s meeting and become an impromptu representative after the Bajaji drivers denounced their leaders, was part of the delegation that negotiated with the minister and committed to engaging fellow drivers to return to work.

“We never expected that we would actually be heard, because our leaders have been threatening us for a long time, and we have been complaining for a long time,” Mwakalinga said.

He continued: “But from now on, we are ready to work with the government. We are going to educate our colleagues who weren’t able to join us at this meeting, or at this session we’ve held with the Minister. We will be their teachers, and we will also encourage them so that we all work together and get back on the road.”

A wider policy test

Mbeya is part of a broader tension in the government’s approach to informal work: authorities seek safer, less congested public spaces while street trading and informal transport provide daily income for many households. 

In January, the Prime Minister’s Office said the government would provide designated work areas, credit and coordination for traders, food sellers, bodaboda and bajaji operators, and did not expect traders to work where there were no customers.

The same balance is being tested elsewhere. Dar es Salaam authorities in September gave Kariakoo traders one month to leave roads, drainage channels and shop fronts, while recording their request for clarity on market construction. 

READ MORE: Flood Clearance Along Mto wa Ng’ombe Leaves Tandale Residents in Limbo 

Days later, the government announced a six-month plan for a new market at Kigogo Sambusa while continuing to organise traders in congested parts of Kariakoo.

Research suggests the test is not simply whether authorities designate a new site. A Tanzania-focused study by UNU-WIDER, a United Nations think tank, found that relocations are often resisted when markets are far from transport hubs and customers, poorly serviced or allocated without transparent rules; it recommends affordable, accessible sites and regular participation by traders in local decisions.

Mbeya’s review gives authorities two weeks to turn that principle into a route and market-access plan. Its result will test whether the city can meet its safety and congestion goals while sustaining access to work, customers and affordable transport.