Mkapa says mining compensation “unacceptable”

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa has said that the country’s natural resources, including precious minerals, belonged to all of its citizens and not to a particular group or tribe in whose region they happened to be found, and therefore the revenues raised by the government from such resources would be used for the benefit of all Tanzanians and not local interest groups. Mkapa made his comments when he visited the mineral-rich Shinyanga Region in northwestern Tanzania, where the question of community compensation for companies’ access to mineral resources has consistently been raised, Radio Tanzania reported on Thursday. Mkapa said that the demand by some people for compensation for companies mining in their areas was “unacceptable”, and was not in the national interest.