DAR ES SALAAM, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Barrick Gold Corporation, owner of Acacia Gold Mining Plc, said it was ready to hold talks with Tanzania and see how it can refund the east African nation money that the country claimed to have lost from the mining firm's operations, State House said in a statement on Wednesday.
The statement said the company did not yet specify the amount of money that Tanzania was supposed to be refunded.
According to the statement, talks were held over the matter between President Magufuli and Chairman of Barrick Gold Corporation.
For his part, President Magufuli said apart from refunding Tanzania, Barrick also promised to work with the country in putting up a plant for smelting mineral concentrates locally.
On Monday, a special presidential committee that compiled the second mineral concentrates exports report revealed that between 1998 and March 2017, between 44,000 and 61,000 containers of mineral concentrates worth between 49.12 billion U.S. dollars and 83.32 billion U.S. dollars were exported outside the country by Acacia without the country getting a single cent from royalties and taxes.
"This is daylight robbery. We have to take hard decisions to stop this from happening again," said President Magufuli after the report was presented to him by Nehemiah Osoro, chairman of the special presidential committee.
Magufuli ordered relevant authorities, including Parliament, to immediately review and amend mining laws to ensure that the east African nation benefited from its resources.
The President also ordered the review and amendment of laws pertaining to the oil and gas industry.
"These laws should be reviewed and amended for the benefit of the country. We need investors but they should operate on a win-win situation. We should share the benefits of our resources," said Magufuli.
President Magufuli also ordered the investigation of all former and current government officials who were involved in the signing of mining agreements that led the country to incurring losses amounting to billions of U.S. dollars.
He said the officials to be investigated included former mining ministers and senior lawyers who entered into mining deals that created loopholes for foreign mining companies to rip off the country.
"Our children are dying for lack of medicines while our gold is being exported abroad without our knowledge. This must stop now," said the president, adding that with its abundant resources Tanzania was not supposed to be labeled as poor.
Also on Monday, hours after the release of the report, Acacia Gold Mining Plc, however, termed the findings of the report as "new unfounded accusations".
On May 24, Magufuli sacked Minister for Energy and Minerals Sospeter Muhongo after the first report on mining concentrates showed he was implicated in mining firms' undeclared mineral sand exports.
The president also dissolved the Tanzania Mineral Audit Agency Board of Directors and suspended the agency's Chief Executive Officer, Dominic Rwekaza, for what he termed as negligence.
