DC suspects secret plan to terminate valid contract

Chalinze. Bagamoyo District Commissioner Majid Mwanga says he has discovered a dirty game played by some East Zone Mineral Office officials, who want to terminate a contract with a bonafide investor in quarry extraction at Kinzagu Village in Lugoba Ward.

He accuses them of planning to sign another contract with a different investor interested in the area instead of the previous one.

Mr Mwanga said this, when speaking at a meeting with villagers with a view to knowing the bonafide investor between Gulf Company, which is recognised in the district versus Globa Company and the fate of villagers over their compensation.

The DC, who accompanied by members of the district’s defence and security committee, wanted the referred to mineral office officials to stop confusing the villagers, saying the investor, recognised at regional, district, ward and village levels, was Gulf Company.

He blamed those officials for violating the villagers’ rights by using laws that they knew themselves, saying if two licences were used in the same area, then it was their problem and not the villagers’.

He noted that surveyors had already carried out a valuation of the villagers’ properties and the Gulf Company investor had agreed to pay compensation.

According to the DC, any time they will be notified, when compensation would start and then relocate to pave the way for quarry extraction activities.

For his part, an official from the East Zone Mineral Office, Mr Antony Ngolalumba, admitted to the DC that both investors owned quarry extraction licences in the area allocated by their office.

Land disputes are a perennial problem between investors and villagers in many parts of the country, yet no feasible solution has so far been found.