By Miguel Suleyman
The third edition of Tanzania employers’ sports bonanza has just completed its knockout stage at the University of Dar-es-Salaam grounds in the commercial city heading to its finals on 19 October2024.
Popularly known as Waajiri Bonanza, the third edition also honoured the founding father of Nation, Mwalimu Nyerere whose death anniversary is marked annually on October 14th.
The third edition also featured DP World as the newest employer after the Dubai-based logistics entity took over the operations of the Dar es Salaam Harbour.
In their debut, DP World managed sail through after winning their first match on walkover after their opponents, NMB Bank failed to appear at the venue.
The second match of the day saw Precision Air claiming a huge 4-1 victory of National Transport Institute (NIT) at the same venue.
Also triumphed on the day is ICT Pack who sealed a hefty 3-0 victory over TCB before Bayport beating Garda World Security 3-0 in a one-sided game.
The match between Aluminium Africa and ABSA had to be decided on spot kicks after the match ended in a stalemate.
ALAF won after converting all 5 spot kicks against 3 netted by ABSA.
OSHA also won on walkover after NIC failed to appear at the venue.
Twiga Cement laboured to beat Hester Biociences 2-1 in a closely fought encounter at the same UDSM ground.
Precision Air had sweet evening on the day after a brilliant 4-1 win over NIT before ICT Bank caiming a huge 3-0 victory over TCB.
Bayport were unstoppable on the day following their 3-0 win over Garda World at the same venue.
Also thrilled football fans at the venue was the game between WCF and AGL and WCF won 5-4 on penalty shootout, but the match between Swissport and Jubilee was one-sided and Swissport won 4-0.
The teams that cleared this knockout stage will play in the event’s climax on October 19th this year.
The sports festival was organized by the Association of Tanzania Employers (ATE), the country’s employers’ organisation.
ATE is one of the three tripartite forums that address all industrial relations and labour related issues at sectoral and national levels.
Other forums are the government and Trade Unions.
Association of Tanzania Employers’ membership base continues to grow and currently has about 1400 registered direct members and about 6000 indirect members drawn from private business firms, companies and some parastatal organizations whereby the majority of members are based in Dar es Salaam and the rest are in other parts of the Tanzania mainland.