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An excavator clears rubble at the site where a 16-storey building collapsed at Indira Gandi Street in Dar es Salaam in Mach this year, in which at least 36 people died. Seven months after the tragedy, investigations are yet to be completed. PHOTO | FILE
Dar es Salaam. A 10-storey building comes down tumbling in a heap of rubble. Shortly after, sirens pierce the air as medical and security teams rush to the scene to pull out victims buried deep the bowels of hard concrete and steel.
Political leaders and government officials arrive to join bemused and shocked onlookers milling around the scene as both survivors and the dead are retrieved and rushed to hospital or the morgue.
Orders from national leaders to thoroughly investigate, arrest and prosecute those behind the disaster follow. In a matter of days, the disaster area is cleared and fenced off. Scores of people will be rounded up and charged in court.
Soon, though,it is business as usual. Justice will be a long time coming--perhaps even allowing for a similar disaster to strike again before the first one is sorted.
This is a rendition of true events right here at home. Shockingly, however, no one has been brought to book or held responsible five years after suspects were arraigned for the collapse of the 10-storey building in Dar es Salaam.
The five accused in the 2008 disaster that claimed the life of one man are free today after the court dismissed their case without a hearing. For five years, the case failed to start over incomplete investigations, ending up in the discharge of the accused in February 2011.
For four years, the case was adjourned at least 60 times at Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court. Each time, prosecutors told the court they were still investigating the case. In some instances, according to court records, prosecutors pleaded for adjournments simply because they did not come to court with the case file.
After four years of dilly-dallying, Resident Magistrate Devotha Kisoka dropped the matter in February last year and declared the accused free. The magistrate cited article 107a of the constitution, which prohibits delays in dispensing justice without reasonable ground.
A younger brother of Hassan Nganoga, who died in the 2008 disaster, said the family was shocked by the manner in which prosecutors handled the case.
“We feel the delay was deliberate to frustrate justice for reasons that can only be known to the police and prosecutors,” he said this week. He appealed to the authorities to re-open the case and investigate the police and prosecutors.
The Citizen learn that a case on the collapse of a building early this year, in which 36 people were killed in Dar es Salaam, could take a similar direction. Some 11 people have been charged with manslaughter in this instance, also before the same magistrate in Kisutu. It has been mentioned several times, with investigators citing the same reason--delayed investigations.
Director of Criminal Investigations Robert Manumba said he was not aware of the case. “Let’s do a follow-up to establish what exactly happened to this case,” he added. “You know we have various organs dealing with such cases.”
Soon after the disaster, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda directed that those involved in the case be charged with grave negligence. A commission was also formed to probe the cause of the disaster. He also called for a special quality and quantity audit of all the buildings put up by the firm that put up the structure.
Five years down the line, the report of an official inquiry into the collapse of the building has yet to be released.
Following the March 29 incident, President Jakaya Kikwete visited the scene and said, apparently furious, that those responsible must be punished. “Legal action must be taken against all individuals behind this negligence,” he declared. “The municipal chief engineer, the Ilala district chief inspector of buildings, the owner of the building and whoever else is connected with the scam must face justice.”
Seven months after the tragedy that shocked the nation, the case is stalled at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court.
Businessman Radha Hussein Ladha and 10 others are charged with manslaughter and negligence. So are two officers at the Architects and Quantity Surveyors Registration Board, Mr Albert Mnuo and Mr Joseph Ringo.
The other accused are engineers Charles Ogape, Zonazea Anage and Mohamed Abdukar and Mr Vedasto Ferdinand, a quantity surveyor. Mr Michael Hemed, an architect and Businessmen Goodluck Sylivester, Wilboard Mugabyaso and Ibrahim Kisoki.
Director of Public Prosecutions Eliezer Feleshi declined to comment on the trend but Principal Judge Fakihi Jundu confided that delays due to incomplete investigations have always given the judiciary a difficult time.
He added: “It is a problem that is giving us a hard time. We waste time and resources preparing for the hearing of cases…how can it take five or six year to investigate a clear case?”
Mr Jundu said it was frustrating that the judiciary ended up being blamed for delays caused by police and the DPP’s office.
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