SCORES of urban dwellers are worried over public safety as fuel filling stations next to trade frames and residences on the back street increase each passing day.

In separate interviews, a section of Dar es Salaam residents expressed their irritation with the hectic pace of building fuel stations in practically all city suburbs.

A number of people with residential houses who don’t wish to sell face a dilemma as to whether to stick to the place as they have nowhere to run, but to endure whatever the situation brings up, living next to fuel stations, walled on the sides and open on the street side.

Some feel that it is not right to have fuel station businesses nestled within human settlements, as with Isaac Shilo, a Makumbusho-Buguruni commuter bus driver and resident of Keko Street in Temeke District.

“People residing in rented houses are forced to relocate from one neighbourhood to another fearing safety-related risk likely to be posed by the uptick of fuel stations in areas of congested human residence,” he said.

Sophia Emmanuel, a Vingunguti Street resident in Ilala District wondered why the government was issuing licenses for establishment of fuel stations while on the other hand it is campaigning for a shift to compressed natural gas (CNG) consumption for vehicles.

“In my opinion, the shift to clean energy sources for vehicles, to skip petroleum products is superficial as the government itself seems not to believe in it,” she said.

Helen Josephat, a Salasala Street resident in Kinondoni District, said that she is suspicious of corruption being involved in acquiring permits for building fuel stations without adhering to environmental and land planning regulations.

Interviewed officials said that in most of the 184 district councils, in urban areas mainly, councils administer changes in land use permits from original residential housing development permits to fuel stations.

This shift to construction permits without prior consultation with the National Environment Management Council (NEMC) on pollution and conservation related issues raise eyebrows, she stated.

Jamal Baruti, the NEMC manager for review of environmental and social impact assessment, said in a recent exclusive interview that land use and planning departments at urban district councils have plenty to do with it.

District officials have been consulting NEMC to verify plots for construction of fuel stations after they have already issued investors with change of land use permits and title deeds, he elaborated.

“Issuance of land to develop fuel stations without prior consultation of the authority is against the Environmental Impact Assessment and Audit Regulations (Amendment) 2018. It is also at variance with the Land Act No. 4 Cap 334 of 1999,” he said.

The prevailing scenario is similarly contrary to Section 4(1) of the Environment Management Act No. 20 of 2004 which states that “every person living in Tanzania shall have a right to a clean, safe and healthy environment,” he elaborated.

It jeopardizes Section 6 of the Act which states that “every person living in Tanzania shall have a stake and duty to safeguard and enhance the environment and to inform the relevant authority of any activity and phenomenon that may affect the environment significantly.”

He said that the Minister of State in the Vice President’s Office (Union and Environment) has powers under the Act to issue Environment Impact Assessment Certificates for development of fuel station projects. 

This is done after the investor has obtained the change of land use permit and title deed from the respective district council where the station is to be set up. 

NEMC has the mandate to advise the minister on issuing such certificates in projects that lack commitments on environment and social management plans, while its advice is not mandatory for the minister to accept it.

Issues of corruption surfaced late last year when on December 23 the minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development claimed to have been enticed to accept a bribe from an investor.

He was referring to a fuel business intended to be set up at a Mikocheni street where the required procedures by regulatory bodies on environmental issues had not been followed.

The minister is on record claiming that the businessman in question had promised him a 300m/- pay out if he refrained from questioning the construction of the petrol station near a well-built area. 

The Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), when called, reserved comment on alleged corruption inducement raised by the Lands minister six months on.