j.w.ladwa (1977) LTD

registered in 1977, j.w.ladwa (1977) ltd was the first local tanzanian company to qualify as a class i private company. the company’s very first project was building a bridge of 100 meters connecting tanzania and malawi. at the time, the world bank and the swedish consultants, sweco, discouraged the tanzanian government from promoting a tanzanian company to be the main contractor as the company had little prior experience in the industry at large - let alone from building bridges. the president of tanzania at the time, mwalimu nyerere, simply said – then teach them. so the story began of mr. j.w.ladwa, who with no formal education, and no capital, started the first class i contractor of tanzania. over the next four decades, sweco, the world bank and other multilateral and multinational companies, worked with j.w. ladwa (1977) ltd within projects valued at over usd 700 million. the story of the three brothers is intimately linked to the development of tanzania as a nation. by 1982, the