Opposition camp requests EA Court of justice to intervene Kinana’s issue

THE Opposition camp has called on the Court Prosecutor for East African Court of Justice to open criminal charges against CCM party Secretary General Abdulhaman Kinana whom they accuse to have been involved in cross border illegal elephant tusks business. The Parliament was informed here yesterday. Contributing to the budget estimates for the ministry of East African Cooperation for 2013/14 financial year, a spokesperson in the opposition camp for the ministry who is also shadow minister Ezekiah Wenje (Chadema) said in his speech which was read on his behalf by Raya Ibrahim (Chadema) special seat that, the CCM top official is a shipping agent of the ship which was found to have hauled illegal elephant tusks in Vietnam in 2009. The call by the opposition camp is endorsed in their 18 paged speeches, in which they have claimed also that, the government which is being led by CCM party plays foul over the matter by speaking in favour of their party’s top most official instead of investigating the matter into details and gather enough evidences. Their speech has also quoted the Minister for Home Affairs Dr. Emmanuel Nchimbi who earlier said that a case No. 3 and 4 of the year 2009 which was opened at Kisutu Resident Magistrate Court had been suspended ever since due to the fact that Tanzania had not entered into a contract of exchanging criminals with the government of Vietnam. However, Dr. Nchimbi was contributing his views during the budget estimates for the ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources which was tabled in Parliament on 30^th April 2013 over three weeks ago. He said that, there were no evidences to be tendered before the court. This is the second time the opposition camp in parliament proclaims the involvement of a  CCM top most Secretary General to be among the list of the secret networks of businessmen who directly are involved in illegal global business of elephant tusks. Quoting the opposition camp speech on page 14 which says that, as for Tanzania government seems to be defending and protecting their cadre and speaks in favor of him, and as long as a great number of elephants in national parks among EAC member states face gradual imminent extinction now and then, an aspect which denies revenues in EAC regional states. The Chairperson of the opposition camp wanted to know, what action the Tanzania government takes in order to curb with the increased poaching activities whereby about 600 elephants are indiscriminately killed in our national parks per month. The statistics shows that every day 30 elephants are slaughtered by illegal poaching. As related with the same issue, the opposition camp also wanted to know what steps has the government taken in order to communicate with the Burundian government so as to establish the true fact about the container which was caught full of elephant tusks in China. The views by the opposition camp have created uncertainty with the facts that, probably the arrested container might have been passed through Dar es Salaam port since Burundi is a landlocked country, therefore there is a great possibility for it to have been organized its passage secret security agents through Dar port. They have questioned the government what steps have they taken as part of the implementation of the strategic plan to dominate peace and security within EAC member states.