Tanzania: Clerics Call for Review of Mining Contracts

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

Samuel Kamndaya

25 June 2011

Religious leaders want the government to immediately review its contracts with mining firms, with the view to remove all tax incentives offered to the conglomerates so that the funds can help poor Tanzanians.

Grouped under the umbrella of the Interfaith Standing Committee for Economic Justice and the Integrity of Creation, the leaders from Christianity and Muslems denominations said yesterday that tax incentives to multinational firms were just too generous for a poor country like Tanzania to bear.

“We want the contracts to be reviewed….if our mother law (the Constitution) can be reviewed, what withholds us from reviewing the mining contracts?” said Mr Abdallah Rashid Matumla, a representative from the Muslims Council of Tanzania.

Others present at the meeting, held in Dar es Salaam yesterday, were Prof Camillus Kassola from the Christian Professionals of Tanzania; Bishop Stephen Munga from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania and Fr Gallus Marandu of the Christian Council of Tanzania as well as Mr Silas Olan’g, from the Revenue Watch Institute.

“We exempt tax to companies that have huge budgets than our government…governments in countries where these companies originate do collect tax and in the end we go back to ask for budgetary aid from them….In short, what they give us is a fraction of the tax that we had exempted their companies. This is not the best way to share the national cake,” said Mr Olan’g.

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