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Illegal loggers, timber exporters shielded?
2006-05-11 09:37:08
By Editor
It is now obvious that the government is unable to effectively deal with and control the lucrative illegal logging and export of raw timber business.
Owning up, the Natural Resources and Tourism Minister, Anthony Diallo, on Tuesday, without mincing words said categorical that the government was unable to break up a syndicate deeply involved in the illicit business for the simple reason that some employees of his ministry are involved.
The statement, coming from a cabinet minister puts the government in a very awkward situation.
In essence, the statement has left many questions wanting, and effectively put the credibility of the government at stake. Is this the official government position?
The minister further lamented that ’’it is not easy to control the illegal business because corruption is involved.’’
It is apparent that Minister Diallo is telling Tanzanians that the government, has lost the war on corruption, at least as far as the Ministry of Natural Resources is concerned.
President Jakaya Kikwete has declared a crusade against two issues that he said were at the core of the Tanzanian society graft and environmental degradation. More so the President has personally led the crusade in a bid to rid the society of the vices.
By inference the minister implies that there are those involved in the wanton destruction of the environment, but are sacred cows and therefore untouchable.
That the government is helpless in the face of these faceless individuals to the extent that it cannot even name them. Does the government lack the capacity to reign in these barons in the illicit logging and export arena?
More interesting is the ministers confession that some employees in his ministry are culpable and if it were in the private sector, all of them would face the axe.
The question is, what difference does it make if one is guilty? Isn’t he or she liable for punishment, regardless of his or her social status?
The minister’s confession, disheartening as it, raises our hope that the Ministry of Natural Resources will reign in corrupt individuals, sooner than later to clear its tainted image.
We ask the government: Are there no qualified Tanzanians to take up positions of those who might be fired?
Our worry is that while the minister appears to know all the accomplices in his ministry and those at the Port of Dar es Salaam, he says he had not acted, or as usual, ’the government is still conducting investigations into the scam and will take action when it has gathered enough evidence.’
In the end, ’when no evidence has been found,’ these individuals would have plundered the natural forests of this country and left them bare.
We think the government is being overprotective to some corrupt people and unless they are halted, we have every reason to believe that the war on graft remains in words and not in deeds.
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