National Development Corporation (NDC)
"We are in final stages to get the investor for the soda ash
project to kick start," said Mlinga Mkucha, acting managing director of
Tanzania's National Development Corporation (NDC), a Tanzanian state-run
company which is behind the development of the project.
The official said the proposed factory has been approved by
Tanzania's environmental regulatory authorities and that the salt
marshes and freshwater wetlands on the edges of the lake are not
endangered as claimed by environmentalists.
Mkucha said that the area has a potential of about 4.07 trillion
metric tons of soda ash and the figure makes Tanzania the third country
in the world after the US and Turkey for having large deposit of soda
ash, the main raw material in the making of detergents, glass, chemicals
and soaps.
"We will be harvesting one million metric tons of soda ash from the
pristine lake," he said, adding that Tanzania will harvest the
materials for about 540 years to come.
According to Mlingi, Tanzania will be earning more than USD400m
annually from the sales of soda ash once the project kicks start.
He said NDC has started working on identifying land requirements
for different factories that are to be established alongside the
proposed soda ash processing plant.
"We also want to involve local people in every step so that at the
end of the day they become part and parcel of the project," Mlingi said.
Edward Sapuyuni, Chairman of Monduli District Council, said already
9,000 ha of land have been allocated for the establishment of line
industries.
He said the district council is well placed to ensure that proper land use management is taken into consideration.
"We want to ensure that all issues related to land are resolved before the project kick start," he said.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
No comments :
Post a Comment