THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA PARLIAMENT OF TANZANIA Office of the Member of Parliament, Nzega Constituency Hon . Dr. Hamisi A....
THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF
TANZANIA
Office of the Member of Parliament, Nzega
Constituency
Hon . Dr. Hamisi A. Kigwangalla (MP)
Ref. No.:
MP2013/13/0017 Mr. Peter R. Sullivan,
Chief Executive Officer and Non-Independent Executive Director,
Resolute Mining Ltd,
4th Floor, the BGC Centre,
28 The Esplanade,
Perth, Western Australia 6000
Email: contact@rml.com.au
Web.: www.rml.com.au
Dear Mr. Sullivan,
Re: Your Visit to Nzega
and Our Pending Grievances
Kindly refer to
the heading above.By way of introduction, I am an elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Nzega Constituency in the Parliament of Tanzania, a proud member and a leader in the ruling party, CCM, and above all a concerned statesman – a Tanzanian, a human being and a citizen of the world.
I feel obliged, in order to set a stage for what I am intending to write here today, to bring to your attention the circumstances for which your rich multinational company, Resolute Mining Ltd, enjoyed an opportunity to come to Tanzania, and particularly to Nzega, through your subsidiary Resolute Tanzania Ltd, to reap our natural resources. We have so many daunting challenges that needs our attention to meet them. Our leaders, executives and all of us the people are aware of the poor pregnant women who loose their lives and those of their infants just because they miss an opportunity to a skilled birth attendant, we are aware of the possibilities that are opened up when we educate our youngsters, we are very much aware of the many men and women who survive by eating a single indecent meal, we are aware of the crowded wards where pregnant and breastfeeding mothers share a single bed in our hospitals and in some areas where they sleep on the cold floor, we are aware of the many men and women who tirelessly work hard everyday, without commensurate compensation, to serve their fellow Tanzanians in hospitals, health centers, dispensaries, universities, schools, defense forces, police posts, prisons, courts of law, councils, ministries etc, we are aware of the plight faced by our many men and women who attend our hospitals with hopes of getting treatments to their ailments but they dont get the desired medicines and care – we are generally are aware of our poverty and the impact it has on our wellbeing and backwardness that we have. We live with it, we live it, we swallow the bitterness of all this reality everyday. We remain alive and happy because we hope that the future could be more friendlier. We hope that we have friends and allies, and above all fellow human beings, who are citizen of this world, who would never let us down alone.
We are further aware of the geographical position that our good nation is inherently blessed by GOD, the almighty. We are aware of our potentials and the fact that we have rivers, lakes and arable land that can feed the whole world if made good use of, we are aware of the potentiality we have in minerals, gas, oil and gemstones, we are aware that our country is rich! We have always remained peaceful and friendly to neighbours and countries afar, believing that our potential is formidable and if awaken we will take off and do away of our challenges. We are aware that we could not succeed on our own, because we are trapped in the poverty cycle, we have no capital, technology and trained personnel. We have to move forward with others, we have to invite friends to bring in their capital, skills and experiences to transform our natural resources and all our potentialities into something tangible that could assist in meeting up to our challenges of poverty, illiteracy and diseases.
It is because of our dire need to exloit our potentials, and ofcourse of the global system that calls for glogalised solutions to development we had to attract foreign direct investment to our country, and here is where you came in. In Nzega you invested US$ 48m and started harvesting Gold and Silver. So far you have earned more than US$ 3 billion, and all put together, our country has only benefitted by receiving not more than US$ 19m in taxes, levies and Corporate Social Responsibility. Nzega has only received not more than US$ 3m – excluding the contract on Water supply project where you invested US$ 1 m but you are recouping it by using 1m cubic litres of water everyday without paying your bills until your investment in the project is even. The remainder, about US$ 1.5m you are cosmetically investing in social responsibility projects where you build a class room here and there, a dispensary here and there, a water dam here and there, at very unreasonable costs and brag a lot about it. Despite you people enjoying our riches at very attractive terms, you have been so unkind as to even avoid taxes unnecessarily, avoiding levies and faking your CSR contribution to gain legitimacy.
In return the people of Nzega are depleted of water for domestic use. Your investment in Nzega has polluted the environment, depleted our mineral and water resources, killed and scared away our natural biodiversity, the influx of the people brought infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. Today your company departs Nzega richer than it was in 1997, but Nzega poorer than then, left with all the above plus Cyanide, the empty pit and hips of sand. I wish you could at least be transparent as to tell us the people of Nzega, how you wish to close the mine safely and with minimum health harzards to the people. Stories that you would turn the pits into dams are not very much appreciated by my people. Let you come clear and truthful at least now that you are exiting for it would be so painful if you could leave us without anything beneficial but with environmental health problems.
Kindly know that your investment in Nzega was initially not very welcome, but with the sweet promises you came up with and the fact that the world where multinationals like yours operate being greek to us then, our leaders, executives and us the people finally agreed to work with you, to host you and give you all the necessary assistance and protection believing that your presence would give us an opportunity at making use of natural resources to solve our problems. Your 15 years of presence in Nzega and Tanzania has proven that you have nothing to offer but everything to take! Your companies have no heart, are not fair and even more are inhuman. Now that you are coming to Nzega, maybe you will have the audacity to prove me wrong and you would be atleast fair and humane and would act to the problems faced by the good people of Nzega. I understand that you are being hailed by your shareholders as being a successful CEO, by squeezing poor people, but for once could you act fairly in the interest of fellow human beings?
I write this letter to you on behalf of the good 600,000 men, women and children who live and work in Nzega. My good people of Nzega, whom I am dearly honored and blessed to represent have requested me to tell you this; that if you are considering visiting our good land of Nzega, you should come along with the following solutions, short of which know that you are not very much welcome.
That, you will respond to this jibe with actions and not words. You will grant the 1,500 men and women their rehabilitation fund as promised by your peers in a dispute resolution meeting between your men and us the representative of the people, chaired by the Deputy Minister for Energy and Minerals, Hon. Stephen Massele (MP). The funds would serve as a rehabilitation mechanism to the people who lived, worked and invested in the mine area before you came in that was claimed by your company and also the environmental and social harzards that have been faced by these people and the surrounding villages.
That, you would pay the pending service levy of close to US$ 3m that you opted not to for reasons known to you better, because at it stands you came in Nzega in 1997 and you have been using services there, our water, our roads etc, and the Local Government Finances Act, 1982 provides for you to pay the same to us. All other companies, contracted by Resolute Tanzania Ltd, including Moolman Bros and other exploration companies have been paying ever since except for your company. This is so shameful , unbecoming and completely unexpected of a big organisation as yours.
That, you would pay to the government a rehabilitation bond of US$ 30m to ensure that you close the mine successfully without leaving behind an environmental impact without insurance that you would correct it.
That, you would service the machines that you wish to leave behind and rehabilitate the buildings to fit for the establishment of a Vocational training institute or a geology and mining engineering faculty.
That, you would meet our proposal for corporate social respsonsibility that was sent to you and your peers, and set aside funds for construction of bitumen roads in Nzega township, re-construct the water distribution network in Nzega and all villages where the piping goes including creating supply channels from your deep wells, construct 2 state of the art high schools and leave that behind as a legacy to your being in Nzega and enjoying the riches that it was naturally endowed with.
We are aware that you are carrying out prospective mining studies in different parts of our country, and that you are considering re-locating the mining refining equipments from Nzega to Nyakafuru, well, we wish you lucky there but we the people of Nzega shall never be ready to let you vacate from Nzega if we have not cleared all these grievances amicably and in a win-win situation.
I
remain humbled by your visit to Nzega and looking forward to hear from you the
soonest before you land in Nzega.
Dr. Hamisi Kigwangalla (MP),
NZEGA Constituency.
Cc: - H.E. President Jakaya Kikwete, The United Republic of Tanzania
- The Rt. Hon. Speaker, The Parliament of Tanzania
- The Secretary General, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM)
- The District Commissioner, Nzega
- The People of Nzega
- The Media Houses
Member of Parliament for Nzega | P. O. Box 415,
Nzega. Tabora | Cell: +255782636963
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