Two Italian companies are assisting social development in Tanzania. With leather at the centre of it all. Karanga Leather Industry (KLIK) has underwritten a collaboration agreement with Toscana Macchine Calzature (TMC), historical footwear company, and Italprogetti, Tuscany-based business that develops innovative solutions and technologies for the tanning segment, with the goal of increasing the capacity of production by involving “certain sections of the population that are particularly in need. KLIK, joint venture that unites the Social Security Fund for Public Services and the Department of Corrections, has been running a project inside the Karanga penitentiary since 2017. The project works on the manufacturing of footwear, and by offering training to the inmates, it gives them new opportunities once they are done with their sentences. According to local news sources, the agreement underwritten the past few days in Dar el Salaam with the two Italian businesses will develop in two phases. During the first phase, the laboratories already existing inside the penitentiary will be strengthened, bringing footwear production from the current 150 daily pairs to 400. While during the second phase, two new buildings will be created, one of which will be used to manufacture 4,000 pairs of shoes per day (1.2 million per year), along with leather soles and other leather goods like handbags, jackets and holsters. In the second building about 13,000,000 million square meters of raw hides will be tanned every year – 60% of which will be used, and 40% of which will be sold -. The construction of these new buildings will be done by occupying about 25 acres within the penitentiary’s space, and it will require 16 months of labor. 4,000 people will be employed organically and in related services. As a whole, always according to estimates, this new activity should generate about 30 million Euro revenue per year.
