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300m/- tanzanite project risks becoming white elephant
2006-07-19 09:54:58
By Adam Ihucha, Merelani
An ambitius multimillion project to protect and conserve the world’s sole Tanzanite deposits in Mererani, in northern Tanzania has failed to take off since its inception five years ago, The Guardian has established.
Lack of political goodwill has been blamed for the failure. The 300m/- novel project was launched in 2001 after the government officially declared the area a ’controlled zone’.
The grand project entailed fencing of the ’controlled area’ to guard against proliferation of illegal miners and put in place essential amenities to guarantee conservation of the zone through sustainable exploitation of the resource.
On the schedule, the project should have been complete by December, 2005.
Investigations by The Guardian revealed that the implementation of the ambitious plan has been on and off.
Though the delay in implementation has been attributed to lack of political good will on the part of the government, Northern Zone Mineral officer, John Nayopa says the allegations were baseless.
’’If there was no political will on the part of the government, the project would never have kicked off,’’ Nayopa told The Guardian in an exclusive interview.
However, he was emphatic that the project’s implementation and completion had been hampered by lack of funds, among other reasons.
’’Initially the project was supposed to be funded by the Tanzanite stakeholders but the plan could not work out until 2004 when the government came in and took over by allocating 300m/- for the project,’’ he said, lamenting that the funds were releasing by installment.
According to Nayopa nearly 70 per cent of the earmarked area has so far been fenced. At the same time the mineral officer said the fencing of the remaining part would be complete by end of this month.
Nayopa, however, acknowledged that the implementation of the project had been very problematic but expressed optimism that it would be fully implemented in the course of this year.
As part of the project, he said 8,000 people, working in Mererani mining area had already been issued with identity cards.
’’The police station has also been completed and the government has already deployed a number of officers there,’’ said Nayopa. He noted that besides the police officers there were 19 security guards providing 24-hour surveillance in the controlled area.
But even as the project’s implementation drags on, the plan has the backing of Tanzanite stakeholders notably Tanzania Mineral Dealers Association (TAMIDA)
TAMIDA Chairman Sammy Mollel said despite the slow pace of the project, it was ideal.
’’We have been supportive of the project …but the government should speed up the pace of its implementation, particularly the fencing exercise’’ Mollel petitioned.
TanzaniteOne President and Chief Operating Officer Ian Harebottle, though supportive of the project expressed pessimism at the pace of implementation.
’’To make Mererani a controlled area is great idea, but it needs 100 per cent commitment by all Tanzanite stakeholders including the government, if the plan is to be effective and sustainable’’ Harebottle said.
The idea to make Mererani a ’controlled area’ was part of an initiative to curb Tanzanite smuggling and was conceived at the Tucson Tanzanite Summit held in February 2001.
It was also a move to exonerate the sector of allegations by western media linking Tanzanite trade with the Al-Qaeda international terrorist network.
Then Tanzania’s Minister for Energy and Natural Resources, Edgar Maokola-Majogo who led a high-powered government delegation to the meeting, gave five measures that he said would check the unregulated marketing of the gemstone.
Enforcement of April 2001 decree making Mererani a controlled area was prime. Others were regular review of mining licenses, formulation of conducive tax regimes and setting up Export Processing Zones.
The government also consented to the introduction of a cross-sectional Tanzanite Board, modeled on the Kimberley Certification Process.
Tanzanite was first found in the late 1960’s at Mererani. The name was changed from ’’blue zoisite’’ to Tanzanite by Tiffany & Company.
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