TEAM SEES FAKE NAMES IN NORTH MARA PAY LIST

A COMMITTEE formed by the Minister for Energy and Minerals, Professor Sospeter Muhongo, in February to examine problems of land acquisition and compensation at North Mara Gold Mine has established several hundreds of fake names of people demanding compensation from the gold mine.

More than 800 names found in the compensation report are either fake or linked with names of government officers entrusted to conduct valuation in the villages around the mine a few years ago.

The Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) will investigate the names for further actions, according to the Tarime District Commissioner (DC), Mr Glorious Luoga. “I have given this report to PCCB to conduct investigation.

They need to look for chairperson and secretary of the task force and interrogate them,” Mr Luoga said while addressing residents of Nyamichele area in Nyakunguru village.

The DC said members of the task force and citizens who would be found to have involved in cooking the report must be taken to court. “All those who were involved in the cheating should be taken to court even if they are 800 people,” Mr Luoga repeatedly directed.

The DC said the committee, which was in Tarime working on the matter recently, had established that there were between 720 and 137 names that lack authentic facts to enable compensation. He said only 883 names found in the report compiled by the task office were currently entitled to get compensation from the gold mine, which is operated by Acacia Mining.

The gold mine, Mr Luoga hinted, was ready to pay compensation once it is given a clean report that has no fake names among other things.

He told the villagers demanding compensation to be patient until an in-depth investigation is done on the said fake names to clear the doubts. The DC blamed members of the task force for allegedly failing to observe the issue of integrity and professionalism when they did the valuation, especially at Nyamichele sub-village.

The task force was composed of several officials from various departments; with some coming from Dar es Salaam. The DC was briefing the villagers on measures taken to ensure that they are paid their compensation. Local leaders admitted that there were acts of cheating during the valuation exercise.

“We need to be patient because the sins we did had come back to us”, Nyakunguru Village Government Chairperson, Mr Abel Maginga, said without going into details. Kibasuka Ward Councillor Ms Loyce Manyata also appealed for calm but asked the government to speed up the process to facilitate timely compensation for all those eligible.