Urban Public Toilets Management in Tanzania: Understanding Cost-effective Approaches

Abstract

Cost recovery and user satisfaction are among the core objectives of any public or quas-public good provision.  Public toilet service provision has been the domain of local government until when liberalisation policies struck the developing south.  With stringent condition to reduce the fiscal burden, local government authorities have sought to offload some of its core functions including the management of public toilets to contracted firms.  Based on regression and comparative quadrant analysis, this study evaluates cost recovery and user satisfaction in relation to public toilet condition based on a total of 729 user responses and 31 public toilet operators.  The observations point to misguided decision to place public toilet management under contracted firms instead of placing then under Public Private Partnership (PPP). The decision to place public toilets management under private contract or individual contract is only secondary to PPP if the focus is to achieve both cost recovery and user satisfaction.  However, if the focus was to achieve only cost recovery regardless of the need to protect users, then the decision would have been well founded but can be conspired inappropriate in as long as public toilets remain the domain of public good.