SOME academicians and ordinary citizens yesterday termed the resignation of two Acacia mining company bosses as ‘diplomatic decision’ --linking the move to a recent stand-off over an agreement reached between the government and Barrick Gold Corporation.
Those who resigned are Chief Executive Officer, Brad Gordon and Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Wray.
Their resignation comes just two weeks
after the government and Barrick, Acacia’s major shareholder, ironed out
issues that emerged out of the copper concentrates saga, among other
agreements were that Barrick will pay Tanzania 300 million US dollars as
a gesture of good faith.
Under the agreement, the Barrick agreed
to give the government 16 per cent stake in three of its mines and share
economic benefits under 50-50 arrangement.
Acacia seemed to be unhappy with the
decision, with Mr Wray reported saying the company had received no
proposal for approval, but it did not have the ability to pay the money,
and the agreement must be approved by Acacia’s board and shareholders.
Reacting to resignation of the two,
University of Dar es Salaam lecturer Dr Benson Bana opinioned that there
was something behind their move and that was to do with being
accountable over what happened.
“What they did is a wise decision and
from my experience this is normal in commercial companies. Their
resignation has positive correlation with what was happening; I remem
ber one of them even declared that they didn’t have the capacity to pay
Tanzania such agreed amount,” Dr Bana said.
And, their statements went in contrary
with the decision reached by the major shareholder and the government.
“It was clear that all what happened in the copper concentrates saga was
under their management… and their resignation will result into
restoration of good image of Acacia,” he said.
Another academician from the UDSM, Prof
Haji Semboja, commented that though he would not directly connect the
decision to gold concentrates saga, he argued that it was normal for
white men to step down as a sign of being accountable when they see that
something happened and they did not have control over it.
“In this mineral saga, Tanzania was not
dealing with a person but rather the system, therefore their resignation
will not affect anything,” he said.
Mr David Bufule, an ordinary citizen,
said he could see promising future on agreement reached between Barrick
and the government after the resignation of the two, whom he believed
were setbacks to the implementation of the agreements.
In line with this, Mr Bufule was also
optimistic over the formation of a new company to operate under 50-50
partnership with the government.
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