Monkey ‘business’ sends forest body CEO packing

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THE Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Professor Jumanne Maghembe, has suspended the Chief Executive of the Tanzania Forest Services Agency (TFS), Juma Mgoo, alongside two directors and seven zonal managers for inefficiency at the forests watchdog.

Prof Maghembe has also suspended the Assistant Director responsible for Wildlife Utilisation in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Dr Charles Mulokozi, for defying an order restricting him to issue a permit for transporting monkeys outside the country.

On Wednesday night, police intercepted 61 live monkeys that were about to be sneaked out of Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) to Eastern Europe, according to the minister, who also said that several suspects of Eastern Europe origin and their accomplices from Tanzania had been nabbed at the airport.

Kilimanjaro Regional Police Commander (RPC) Wilbroad Mtafungwa confirmed the incident in an interview with the ‘Daily News’, saying police were holding two Dutch nationals who were being interrogated.

He named the suspects as Artem Vardanian (52) with passport number NWF8CKJR8 and Edward Vardanian (46) with passport number NY96P96.

“The suspects have been detained at KIA police station and we are still conducting investigation with officers from the wildlife department.

We are keeping the monkeys as evidence,’’ he reported. According to Prof Maghembe, the monkeys were loaded into a hired South African aircraft that was also seized by the police.

The pilot of the plane is also under police custody. “Dr Mulokozi will stay aside pending investigations because I ordered him not to issue any permit for transportation of animals but he failed to abide by the directive,’’ said Prof Maghembe.

The minister added that he was informed that there were 450 live monkeys that were due to be transported illegally outside the country, insisting that he would direct the authorities in the wildlife department to seize them immediately.

Regarding the suspension of senior TFS officials, Prof Maghembe said apart from the Chief Executive, other senior officials who were suspended are Director of Resource Mobilisation, Zawadi Mbwambo and Director of Planning and Resource Utilisation Nurdin Chamoya.

The four senior officials will be investigated to establish their scope of involvement, according to the minister. As investigations go on, the minister has appointed Mr Gerald Kamwenda as Acting TFS Chief Executive, Ms Mwanaidi Kijazi as Acting Director of Resource Mobilisation and Mr Haji Mpya as Acting Director of Planning and Resource Utilisation.

The zonal managers who were suspended pending investigations into their conduct include Herbert Haule (Southern Zone), Bakari Rashid (Eastern Zone), Shabaan Mwinjuma (Central Zone), Cuthbert Mafupa (Northern Zone), Emmanuel Minja (Western Zone), Haji Hatib (Lake Zone) and Bruno Mallya (Southern Highlands).

The minister was also irked by illegal harvest of logs in different areas, which he said was one of the reasons that prompted the suspension of TFS officialsHe gave the recent example of Kalambo District where several valuable logs were seized after it was realised that they were being transported to the neighbouring country without proper export documents.

Prof Maghembe said his ministry dished out 3m/- to facilitate the recovery of the logs and ordered that they be auctioned and the money obtained be channelled to other development projects.

“The authorities there informed me this week that logs worth a whopping 500m/- had been burned instead of being auctioned as I directed… indeed these people have let me down,’’ he remarked.