-New evidence of dubious payment on behalf of Meremeta Gold company -Successor company TANGOLD benefited from another cash remittance.
THISDAY REPORTER
Dar es Salaam
THE Bank of Tanzania (BoT) made questionable payments of over $118m (approx. 150bn/-) to a foreign bank to liquidate a loan issued to the now defunct Meremeta Gold Mine Company Limited, THISDAY can now reveal.
According to our investigations, the central bank made the suspect payments through the New York-based HSB Bank, after the gold mine company went bust.
Impeccable government sources have revealed that BoT also paid an additional $13.34m (approx. 17bn/-) to another bank account under the name of TANGOLD, at the National Bank of Commerce Limited Corporate Branch in Dar es Salaam.
It is understood that BoT transferred a total of $118,396,460.36 to Nedbank Limited through HSB Bank based in New York, being payment to liquidate a loan issued by Nedbank to Meremeta Gold Mine Co. Ltd after the company had gone bankrupt.
On the other hand, another payment to the tune of $13,340,168.37 was made to the TANGOLD bank account at the NBC Corporate Branch, our sources say.
Government insiders also say that beforehand, BoT officials purchased a controversial 155bn/- Treasury bond and later exchanged the amount for US dollar currency, which was used to effect the suspect payments to Meremeta and TANGOLD.
Before being liquidated, Meremeta Gold was a joint venture owned on a 50-50 basis by the Tanzanian government and a private company called Trinnex (Pty) Limited.
The company went bankrupt following what was officially described as ’’poor performance.’’ Its assets and liabilities - including the Buhemba Gold Mine in Mara Region - were then transferred to TANGOLD, a new company wholly owned by the government.
It remains unclear why the government through the central bank - decided to clear the loan on behalf of Meremeta Gold Mine Co. Ltd after it became bankrupt, instead of Nedbank Ltd filing its claim directly to the liquidator.
The BoT governor, Dr Daudi Ballali, has recently faced a storm of criticism over various allegations pointing to massive misappropriation of funds at the central bank. The allegations have prompted calls from opposition members of parliament for the embattled governor to either resign or be sacked.
The Deputy Opposition leader in parliament, Dr Wilbrod Slaa (Karatu´s CHADEMA), made a call in the National Assembly for Ballali to step down as BoT governor in order to pave the way for a full investigation into the allegations.
Basically, the allegations have centred on the reported mysterious disappearance’ of foreign exchange funds from the BoT´s external commercial debt account, in excess of $200m (approx. 250bn/-).
There have also been queries on the ever-ballooning costs of construction of the BoT Twin Towers headquarters in Dar es Salaam, said to have now reached a staggering $340m (approx. 425bn/-), which is more than four times costly compared to similar buildings in London, New York and Tokyo.
Much reference has been made to a mysterious, widely circulated email document that, amongst other things, accuses Ballali of personally facilitating the alleged funds misappropriations at the central bank.
However, according to our impeccable sources, the latest revelations of payments made through BoT to clear the Meremeta loan and boost the TANGOLD account are not mentioned in the much-hyped email document.
No comments:
Post a Comment