Mount Kilimanjaro porters receive hiking garments

CHALLENGES facing Mount Kilimanjaro porters have been partly solved as a benefactor has come up and offered hiking garments.

The offer was given by a Briton, Kim-way David, who was moved by her husband’s narration of how porters suffer from cold on their way up and down due to lack of proper gears. The porters have been complaining over failure by tour companies and agents to provide them with proper garments leading to some of them contracting diseases.

Over 100 porters were provided with the garments at Marangu Gate of Kilimanjaro National Park (Kinapa) recently and thanked Ms David for her generosity, calling for other stakeholders to emulate her.

Ms David said her husband scaled the mountain in 2014 and two years after they had to bring the necessary garments for the porters as part of their initiative to promote tourism by ensuring that the ambassadors, porters, are in good shape.

“My husband had an opportunity and scaled Mount Kilimanjaro in 2014, his guide was Abdul (Mallya). When he was trekking up he witnessed how porters were suffering... he decided to buy these garments for them,” said Ms David.

One of the porters, Mr Abdul Mallya, said porters have been experiencing difficult environment while carrying luggage up and down Mount Kilimanjaro, but little was being done to address the situation.

He called upon tour companies to work on the matter to see to it that porters, guides and cooks get what they need, saying the working environment is still worrisome and there is even a risk of losing lives on the African highest mountain.

March this year the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Professor Jumanne Maghembe called upon employers of the porters, guides and cooks to ensure their employees have the right garments. He directed that no porter should be allowed to cross the Marangu Gate if they do not meet the standards set, otherwise tough measures would be taken.

Mr Maghembe signalled that if the government was not happy with the way tour companies and agents operate, it could open doors to foreign companies in the tourism sector, so that there is competition that would see better services offered in the sector.

Source:DailyNews