Land Acquisitions and the Politics of Renaming
RENAMING COMPANIES AND DEALING IN LAND: FROM INFENERGY TO AGRICA
By Chambi Chachage
In May 2006 InfEnergy Tanzania
Limited agreed to buy 5835 hectares of land in Tanzania at the purchase price
of USD 2,550,000. This private company incorporated with limited liability in
the country only came into being in September 2005. However, InfEnergy UK
Limited is also named as the purchaser in the land sale agreement indicating
that the former is a local subsidiary.
This craft of renaming companies is
at the heart of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) in Tanzania. It is generally used
to circumvent the laws of the land that restricts and prohibits foreign
ownership of land[1]. Renaming can also be used
to disguise investors’ original intentions.
According to the Annual Report and Financial Statements for
the Year Ended 30 June 2008 of the African Agricultural Capital Limited
(AAC), one of the companies that enabled InfEnergy to acquire an estate and
financed its initial development phase in the country, this foreign-cum-local “was
established in Tanzania to exploit the opportunity to create biodiesel businesses
in developing markets”. “However”, AAC further noted, “in the light of” of the
then “recent increases in food prices, the business is now committed to growing
only food crops (predominantly oil palm and rice) in the short term and will
review the potential production of biofuels periodically”. It also observed
that “through its Tanzania subsidiary Kilombero Plantations”, InfEnergy had
“acquired a substantial estate (about 8,000 hectares” at Mngeta in the
Kilombero Valley” and that it had “established an oil palm nursery” and planned
“to plant 7,500 hectares to oil palm (net of infrastructure) over the next five
years”. “During the development phase”, AAC noted, it “will also cultivate rice
and other food crops on the estate”[2].
The UK-cum-Tanzania company indeed
acquired from the Rufiji Basin Development Authority (RUBADA) an estate that
constituted: Farm No. 411 Mngeta, with all its buildings, measuring 5818
hectares; all parcel of land and buildings opposite Mngeta farm on the side of
TAZARA railway measuring about 7 hectares; all parcel of land, with buildings
therein, located in Isamo and in near the Chimbi Falls on the Mngeta River
(where there is a hydro-electric power station and a dam) that measure about 30
hectares; and a number of movable assets and equipment.
It also presented itself as
primarily interested in biofuel. IIED study in 2009 that interviewed Mr. Carter Coleman and described him as the Director of InfEnergy
UK Ltd presented the company as cultivating “rice while growing oil palm”[3]. In
WWF’s 2009 study that consulted and described Carter Coleman and the “Managing
Director” and Graham Anderson as the “Business Development Director”, InfEnergy
is presented as a biofuel company “owned by Capricorn LLC, a USD $5 billion
Silicon Valley SRI and a large UK based investor”[4].
The company has now been renamed and thus described in the AAC website: “Agrica
Ltd was established in Tanzania in September 2005 to exploit the opportunity to
create biodiesel businesses in developing markets. Given the current global
debate about food security, food versus fuel, the company is committed to
growing only food crops (including vegetable oils) in the short term and will
review the potential production of biofuels periodically”[5]. But
the biofuel narrative has changed. (Cf. http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18822 and http://udadisi.blogspot.com/2011/10/jk-what-did-kpl-show-you-and-what-did.html)
It is now rebranded as a company
that was started in 2005 to develop “sustainable
agribusinesses in Africa”. Its rationale for doing so in East Africa is no
longer presented as biofuel but, rather, “the near absence of commercial
farming, the high prices and the large and burgeoning demand of their internal
markets—a region where the consumption of staples is rising with fast-growing
populations; where in some countries 95% of current production is from
inefficient smallholders with limited access to inputs or modern farming
methods; and where high import tariffs are entrenched by the necessity of
maintaining a rural economy and food security”. Its rice project in Mngeta farm
that commenced in 2007 is celebrated as the largest in the country and in October
2011 President Jakaya Kikwete paid it an official visit[6],
declaring Kilombero as one of the three districts that the government will
support to take the lead in producing rice in the country.[7] In
May 2011 at the World Economic Forum (WEF) his government showcased it as a
model farm in the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT)[8], a
public-private partnership with international partners such as Diageo, DuPont,
General Mills, Monsanto, SAB, Syngenta, Norfund, Unilever, USAID, Yara
International, the Irish Embassy, AGRA and FAO[9].
.JPG)
.jpg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment