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Eleven firms pay wildlife fees
Daily News Reporter
Daily News On Saturday; Friday,February 15, 2008 @19:02


Only 11 out of 54 hunting firms have so far paid their hunting and wildlife fees since the new fees were introduced last year, the National Assembly was told today.

The Minister for Tourism and Natural Resources Mrs Shamsha Mwagunga said that her ministry had already written letters to the reluctant companies to honour their obligations or face the music.

“The Director of Wildlife has legal mandate to take the companies to the court and revoke their licences. But we’ve started by writing them letters before taking legal measures,†she said.

According to the Minister, the Ministry held discussions with Tanzania Hunting Operators Association (TAHOA) on the matter and the latter had agreed to pay their dues before the end of 2007/08 financial year.

The Minister was responding to questions by Kaika Telele (Ngorongoro-CCM) who wanted to know the number of companies that had paid their fees and how much had been collected.
She also wanted to know what measures were being taken by the government for the defaulters.

“The 11 firms have paid whole or part of the fees and $622,540 have been collected so far. 7 firms, which own 9 hunting blocks have not, paid even a single cent on claims that their blocks have enough animals. Our experts are working on such claims and will submit their reports by July this year†said Minister Mwagunga.

It would be interesting to have a list of the other companies who havent paid. I'm not trying to point any fingers would just like to know if some of the companies who lease out the hunting grounds to outfitters who do pay their fees actually go and pay the government as well.

It's too bad that even the 11 paid. That would be a proper, although risky, response to the govt's letter.

Dave

Wow!-- would really like to see that list!
G

This whole article is meaningless as final compromise between Gov and the hunting industry on the 2007 fees as well as 2008 fees was only reached in end of >December 2007. The directive from the Minister to the Wildlife Dpt to start issuing invoices based on these NEW fees for 2007 was only given during the SCI show dates after strong urging by TAHOA to the new Director of Wildlife who visited the show to report to his Minister that clietns where complaining about not receiving their hunted trophies.

As I write this, invoices are still being written and payments of these by outfitters have only just started.

I am sure that as a result there will be long delays in trophy delivery and complications resulting from some of the operators having already spent the trophy fees received from their clients.