Poverty abounds villagers sharing borders with Barrick Group

For about a score of years the mine has been in operation as the miners ferry whatever they mine abroad, living little and big caves in the country.

What has been worse is the pathetic situation of the villagers that surround the mine, who live in abject poverty, while many go without jobs, safe water, good schools and even proper medical care due to lack of well founded infrastructure.

The funny thing is that gold is gone and the residents still remain where they are. Many stories have been filed about this gold mine in northwestern Tanzania, and big international awards won from the reports, but life of the wananchi has littly changed.

One of the journalists who have filed reports on this lopsided state of affair is Neema Mugheni, a reporter with Kahama FM, a community media based in Kahama District, Shinyanga Region.

She did so after she received funds from the Tanzania Media Fund (TMF) to enable her to probe the reasons behind the poverty engulfing the villagers bordering Africa’s biggest riches.

The TMF verifying team which visited the area found that during her assignment, she visited three villages namely Mwime, Chapulwa and Mwendakulima where she interviewed many villagers in the areas.

Among them were the ward council chairperson Emmanuel Pius, Kahama District Municipal Director Anderson Libumba, the District Commissioner, as well as the District Medical Officer at the health centre whose infrastructure, was at the time, in a very pathetic situation.
Areas of focus for her programmes were jobs, social services such as health, water supply as well as the infrastructure.

During her interviews, complaints were abound by residents, especially youth that they had no jobs. According to them, only a few lucky ones were employed as security guards.

During the interview, the Village Executive Officer Vicent Ndesekio that lack of pertinent skills was partly the reason why many residents in the area were going without jobs.

The Kahama District Executive Director for his part called upon youths in the surrounding villages to form groups from which they could engage in farming business and later on sell their foodstuff to the mine.

The DED said he was not in a position to discuss more because the mine was about to close. The Mine Manager, for his part said he was following up DED’s directive that the formation of groups would help youths to improve their wellbeing.

The journalist went further to interview the DC who said it was hard to feed the mine but would sit with the mine management to see how it could come to the help of youths living around the area.

So what were the impacts of the radio programmes?
Connection of clean and safe water in the surrounding villages is underway whereby the TMF verifier managed to get firsthand information from the following leaders to confirm the reports:

Vicent Ndesekio, the Ward Executive Office for Mwendakulima said the District Municipal Council has already set a budget for water connection where the Kahama Urban Water Supply Authorities for its part contributed 9m/= to the ward.

“They will provide a 4-inch pipe. We were short of 1.6m/- for digging out the trench but the wananchi have decided they will do it for themselves to lay down the pipe,” he said.

According to the ward officer, the ward paid 7.6m/- for the connection of water services in its wards and the rest came from the mine’s development fund
The District Executive Director promised to source for money while
Buzwagi Gold mine has provided 7.6m/- to support the water connection for Mwime Street.
Kahama Water Supply Authority Manager Jole Rugemalira confirming this said that the three villages have already paid 7.2m/- and the authority as such plans to work with land officers in laying down the water pipes.

After the reports were published, the repair of the health centre infrastructure has already begun. Prior to that there was shortage of medications and poor infrastructure.

As for transparency of income and expenditure in the villages, now every street is to prepare an annual action plan whereby wananchi must endorse it before it is implemented.Income and expenditure reports shall be unveiled in every three months and not to mention of placing any income received from the mine on the notice board.

As for roads building and maintenance, Accacia Buzwagi Gold Mine has made some contribution by repairing 11 kms road from Mwendakulima, Chakulwa, to Mwime and Chakato villages at gravel level.

The road connects the four villages. A small remaining piece will be repaired by the municipal council according to the DED. The good infrastructure has also created employment for wananchi through improved transport such as use of two and three wheelers.