By Kisuma Mapunda
Maimuna Said is a farmer animator in Shinyanga region, she has been behind successful Parliamentary Committee for Land, Resources and Environment visit to Buzwagi Mining to facilitate payment of Tshs 180/- million to Mwime village.
This fantastic accountabilty success began with an advert placed on village’s notice board in January, 2011 for village representative on the Board of Trustees that was about to be formed for managing funds that will be provided by Barrick Gold Mining in Buzwagi to the village.
Among the people who saw it, was Maimuna Said; she quick realized that there was a problem with the advert. This reflected a core element of animation, accessing information and asking the why question in everything.
“The advert specified those eligible to be in Board of Trustees. It stated that the candidate should have ordinary level of secondary education and be not more than 60 years old. Why these criteria, those who are capable but do not have the qualifications would not be part of this. I know several people in our village who are good, but not qualified and this was supposed to be set by the village assembly,” explains Mainuna.
In 2007 Pangea (Barrick) Gold Mining and Mwime village agreed that the company will be paying Tshs 60/- million to the village each year for five years then both parties will review this and agree on new a new amount. The payments were supposed to begin in 2009, but nothing was paid to the village. Moreover, the payment was intended to be paid through Board of Trustees as per clause 1.2 of Additional Agreement of Main Contract.
The question is why did the payment not been made in 2009?
“The leadership weakness is main reason why the payment was not made all these years. Our former leaders were not seriously, however we were not pushing much. You know here, everything starts from leaders,” narrates Dadi Mashirimo.
This narration detailing how Mwime villagers were; they were expecting their leaders to lead the process. It is a normal practice in many places of Tanzania the direct root for people to demand is not there due to old political structure, whereby leaders left to make all decisions even for matters that are of community itself.
“We did not have general meetings for a period of 12 years until last year (2010) when we elect new new leaders in general election. So they quick started with the formation of the trustees by placing the advert,” explain Maria Pima village council member.
This Board was to be formed by six members; two from Barrick mine, two from the village and two from the district government as overseers. The problem was raised when villagers realized that they had not participated in the whole process.
The advert was placed in January, 2011 and on 11/02/2011 the Board was formed without the approval of the villagers; two names were nominated secrectly and were legally registered. The advert remained in notice board for couple months as if nothing was happening. This is the animator played a secret agent assignment.
“After seening the advert I quickly rushed to the Village Executive Officer and asked him when the next village assembly will be held. The answer was in two days time. I had no time to meet with my collegues about this, so I decided to text them through my phone informing them about the meeting and what we should do about the issue of Board selection,” narrates Maimuna.
Without knowing that the board has been formed, she requested her three collegues to ask about the process that has been used in selecting the village representative in the Board of Trustees in the coming village assembly.
Two days later the meeting was held. Using her animation skills, Maimuna mobilized the three people; two women and one man each with one question, all aimed to raise the same issue, to gain support from other villagers as well.
More comments came from the villagers and they demanded the issue be brought to the next village assembly and refused to accept the proposal of having representatives who had not been selected by them.
This how the truth was revealed and people realised that something cooking was going on. They take action by denounced the board of trustees on the meeting.
It is a very big step for Mwime people, but as well as rural dwellas in Tanzania, Why? Few years ago people were afraid to ask, but now they are asking.
“Ignorance is the killing machine, I was afraid to ask, because I was not so sure what I will say or what people will be thinking of me, but is because I did not what to do. The animation has been of great help and makes things work for me, but as well as giving confidence to myself,” narrates Maimuna.
Changes are started to be seen now, while on training animators were assigned to visit District Council and ask for information like income and expenditure reports etc. For some of them this was first time to be in those offices and talking to their district Directors. They realised that this executives were very cooperative in assisting them to know things. The action of visiting, meeting and asking questions and the response they get in a wide way have help them to overcome fear. Yes action destroys fear for animators and manages them to influence others like Maimuna did to her fellows.
The strategy Maimuna proposed worked well. A councillor decided to take the matter seriously without knowing that Maimuna had masterminded the meeting. Her second move was to push the councillor after the meeting to take action, since she had no authority and power in decision making organs.
“She was really pushing hard so that I take action and I realised that not only were we not participating, but even names of our representatives were already approved without our knowledge and one of them is a former councillor. I felt that something was going on here, I had to do something,” explains Ntabo Majabi ward councillor.
James Lembeli is the MP for Kahama Urban constituency; he normally pays a visit to his voters to feed back on parliament sessions and to listen if they have anything that they would like him to assist with.
While visiting and meeting with Mwime villagers on 29th September 2011, again the issue of trustees was raised this time by villagers and the councillor. Lembeli decided to undertake deeper investigate in order to gather for more information from the district and the mine. He managed to influence the Parliamentary committee to pay a visit to Buzwagi gold mine to meet with both parties and resolve the matter 26th October 2011.
On the side of Barrick they had no objections since they insisted that they were ready to deposit the fund, but did not want to use the Board which has not been approved by the villagers since they want to make sure the money is in safe hand.
Members of the parliamentary committee contributed Tshs 310,000/- on their visit in October for the village to open a bank account that will be used to deposit the fund and new represenatives were selected by villagers as the overseer of the whole process.
“We have already opened the bank account this month (November) as well as informing management of the mining to inject the money. We are planning to have a press conference and press release to thank the committee and our MP for the initiative they made for us,” explains Haji Omari village executive officer for Mwime.
This has been one example of many achievements for Oxfam’s Chukua Hatua where a flexible approach and fundings has enabled the programme to give the right support at the right time.
Maimuna has shown that rural women should not be stereotyped as voiceless and unable to defend their rights and entitlements.
But Maimuna and her fellow group members have proven that they are able to strategise, plan and organise if she is assisted to do so. The farmer animation approach has been successful in changing the level and capacity of thinking, debating ability and taking action attitude in animators like Maimuna Said and 200 others in Shinyanga.
They have been able to search for information and the feedback they are getting which they are then discussing in their groups helps them to overcome fear and use existing structures to raise issues. The animators are well aware of power relations that exist within their communities. Another success is the way both the councillor and MP; they are good examples of active leaders who can work closely with their voters in changing their lives.
This is an area Chukua Hatua is doing a lot of work to improve responsiveness of leaders and enable communities to use them as a pontetially in grass roots campaigning. Our aspiration is that the animators will facilitate others to take action and the approach becomes self-perpetuating so that there are many more Maimunas.
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Maimuna Said as she gesture while narrating her mastermind plan (Photo by Kisuma Mapunda) |
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