While the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism is planning to host the International Conference on Poaching involving East African countries as part of the Tanzanian government efforts to control poaching, trafficking and illegal export of ivory, top brass in the ruling party have been accused of mastermind elephant poaching in this country. It has revealed.
In his strongly worded speech, shadow minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Peter Msigwa (Iringa Urban-Chadema) told the parliament that Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Secretary General Abdulrahman Kinana and other party leaders have been involved in dirty deals in sabotaging natural resources and the tourism sector.
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| Abdulraham Kinana, Secretary General Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM). |
Msigwa said Kinana has been cited in connection with a consignment of elephant tusks impounded in 2009 in Vietnam.
He said records from the Business Registration and Licensing Agency (Brela) indicated that the consignment was exported by Sharaf Shipping, a company owned by Kinana and his wife Rahma Hussein.
“The official opposition in Parliament believes that illicit political and economic interests of a few individuals in the hunting sector is dominant in CCM and its government and it involves top ranking leaders in the party,” Msigwa said.
He further told the parliament that the company in question is also said to have employed a foreigner whose residence documents have expired, adding: “The certificate to transport the cargo was signed by Samir Hemani on November 13, 2008. Hemani was then the finance and administration manager but records from the Immigration Department show that his residence permit had expired when he was signing the documents.”
The opposition shadow minister also accused CCM and its government of embracing businessmen with records that were not clean. He named Mohsin Abdallah, who was recently cited as a major dealer in the illegal ivory trade by the Environmental Investigations Agency during a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) meeting in Bangkok in Thailand. “Abdallah is a former member of the CCM National Executive Committee,” he said.” This tarnishes the image of Tanzanians before the international community.”Msigwa also hit out at the government for allegedly failing to resolve the land crisis in Loliondo in Ngorongoro District for more than 23 years. He accused the government of subjecting Maasai pastoralists in the division to “untold suffering” for lack of recognition as legal residents.
He also accused the government of siding with Ortelo Business Company, which has been granted a professional hunting licence to operate in the area.
But Minister for Home Affairs Emmanuel Nchimbi swiftly came to the defence of Kinana, telling the House that investigations had proved that he had nothing to do with the consignment. According to Dr Nchimbi, several people were arrested and charged in the case of a four-tonne consignment that originated in Kenya and Tanzania, but Kinana was not one of them.
The case has since been withdrawn after the prosecution failed to secure important information from Vietnam. The Far East country has refused to co-operate because it does not have an exchange arrangement on such matters with Tanzania.
Msigwa requested the government to provide a detailed explanation on the involvement of Kinana in the illegal export of the elephant tusks. But Dr Nchimbi objected, noting that the opposition was aware of the developments in the case. “I am amazed at what the opposition spokesperson has said here because I am aware that they know each and everything involving this case,” the minister said. “I think Chadema is going wayward.”
Tabling his budget earlier, the minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Ambassador Khamis Kagasheki, told Parliament that plans to establish a Wildlife Authority were in top gear. The authority is expected to boost efforts to safeguard natural resources, mainly wildlife.
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| Khamis Kagasheki, The Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism |
In the meantime, the ministry has been engaging stakeholders in a bid to amend the Wildlife Act No 5 of 2009 with the intention of charting out supervision and control responsibilities. The draft amendments are ready and consultations with stakeholders are set to begin. If all goes well, the Bill should be tabled in Parliament in November.
The government is, meanwhile, still following up the illegal export of live animals to Qatar on November 26, 2010. Six people have already been arrested and charged over the saga.
But despite his ministry’s achievements, Ambassador Kagasheki said, there were still challenges to be tackled, including shortage of funds, equipment and manpower and low awareness among Tanzanians of the importance of tourism.
Nevertheless, the ministry has come up with strategic planning for the period 2013-2016, which will see employment of enough personnel and improvement of stakeholder participation.
The ministry intends to improve patrols in national parks and game reserves in 2013/14 to safeguard the tourism sector.
Speaking to the Express in an exclusive interview recently, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism Head of Communication Unit George Matiko said that the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Hon Khamis Kagasheki has replied a call from the UN security council for an investigation into the alleged involvement of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the poaching of African elephants and smuggling of their ivory.
He said that the government through the ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism is trying to mobilize international community to curb illegal export of ivory from African countries and the link between illicit wildlife poaching and trafficking with regional insecurity.
Matiko added that the slaughter of elephants and the seizure of illegal ivory from Tanzania and Kenya have soared to their highest levels in decades.
He said that the government with its security authorities is unable to control poaching and trafficking because it’s involved unscrupulous police officers in the trade within the sector.
“This trend of poaching and trafficking of ivory has been involved some of the dishonest police officers in the country that is why it is very difficult to deal with it,” He said the government is aware of the poaching problems in the wildlife sector and insisted that reforms are underway.Matiko added that although the conference is premature but Kagasheki wants such conference to involve a range number of stakeholders from the East Africa, Southern and development partners.
Furthermore, Kagasheki was quoted in the media recently that the government was seeking to sell to China and Japan over 100 tonnes of ivory valued at over USD 55.5million (about Tsh 88.8billion) in order to increase the government revenue in the fight against illegal trade of ivory and poaching.
He further said that due to limited resource the government cannot control and curb illegal trade of ivory and poaching in the various national parks across the country.
The request submitted in early October was due to be discussed at the next Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) meeting in March in Bangkok. It had already frawn strong criticism from conservation groups and some so-called “elephant range” states.
Tanzania said in the application that the ivory to be sold would exclude that which was seized from poachers and any whose origin is questionable.
Cites has not yet confirmed Tanzania’s U-turn, but international news agency reports yesterday said the country had withdrawn its application to sell the ivory stockpile because it had failed to curb the poaching of elephants.
Hundreds of elephants have been killed this year alone, and hundreds of tonnes of ivory seized from poachers. Just a week after Tanzania announced that it had submitted its latest proposal to Cites, Hong Kong authorities confiscated two shipping containers from Tanzania and Kenya loaded with 3,628kg of elephant tusks worth USD 3.4 million.
Last month the same Hong Kong authorities confiscated some 1,330kg of ivory worth $1.4 million believed to have been obtained after at least 150 elephants were slaughtered. Natural Resources and Tourism minister Khamis Kagasheki confirmed that the ivory came from Tanzania.
"There's an enormous slaughter of elephants going on in Tanzania right now. Things are out of hand," says one of the Wildlife stakeholders in Tanzania. "There's no protection in numbers for elephants any more than there was for bison in the last century when they were all wiped out in America. So people shouldn't kid themselves."
Story by Erastus Malilo.
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