Barrick Gold, which has its headquarters in Toronto, Canada, has paid Tanzania US$100 million out of a US$300 million settlement after the government lifted a ban on the export of mineral concentrates. The settlement is part of a dispute resolution that emerged after Tanzania accused Acacia Mining, which Barrick Gold acquired last year, of tax evasion in 2017. Included in the settlement is an agreement struck between Tanzania and Barrick whereby the government would take a 16 percent stake in the subsidiary Twiga Minerals to manage three gold mines leased to Barrick.
This is not the last of the company’s legal woes in Tanzania
Gold makes up close to a third of all of Tanzania’s exports, meaning this resumption of trade is highly beneficial to economic stability in the country, especially as mineral exports globally have shrunk due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Barrick Gold will settle the rest of the claim with five annual payments of US$40 million each. But this is not the last of the company’s legal woes in Tanzania. Only a few weeks after the signing of the Twiga Minerals deal in late January, a group of seven Tanzanian miners filed a legal claim at the British High Court over alleged human rights abuses committed by security forces at Barrick’s North Mara gold mine, making this the second lawsuit filed against a Barrick Gold subsidiary for human rights violations at the same mining site.