"Acacia Mining’s Troubles in Tanzania Run Deeper Than Tax"

The Tanzanian government and investors should ensure Acacia Mining urgently addresses the human rights violations at the North Mara gold mine, including providing compensation to victims, as part of the current negotiations about the company’s operations in Tanzania, Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) said today. RAID released a new video detailing the stories of some of the victims in stark detail.  

Since the beginning of the year, London-listed Acacia Mining has been entangled in a multimillion-dollar tax dispute with the Tanzanian government. On July 3, the Tanzanian government passed new legislation to renegotiate mining contracts. Executives from Barrick Gold Corporation, which holds 63 per cent of Acacia’s shares, arrived in Tanzania to help resolve Acacia’s problems.  

“Acacia Mining and Barrick Gold executives cannot sit in the offices of government officials in Tanzania and only talk about how to resolve the tax dispute and restore their profits,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, the executive director of RAID. “Resolving Acacia’s long-running human rights problems at the North Mara mine should be central to the negotiations. Surely the days of stark profit over respect for human lives are behind us.”