But for unknown reasons, TANESCO flatly rejected the proposal, insisting that it should be given full mandate to control the $300million.
However, the move was strongly rejected by Barrick which among other things questioned the intention of TANESCO of declining to operate a joint venture account with the financier.
A senior official from Barrick Tanzania who declined to be named citing the sensitivity of the current power debate told The Guardian on Sunday this week: ``I am surprised, they (TANESCO) are crying to buy $50million Dowans plants while they have failed to utilise a $300million deal from us…This is a shame.
``We were surprised to hear that TANESCO management wasn`t ready to agree with a very simple condition they were being given by Barrick…And this led us to think that perhaps there were hidden motives about our money.``
After failure to agree on how to manage the billions which is close to the company`s annual revenue collections, Barrick Tanzania`s management decided to stop financing the project, casting a bleak future on the country`s energy sector.
Surprisingly on February 21, this year, while tabling the financial recovery plan of Tanseco before the parliamentary committee responsible for overseeing all publicly owned corporations, the Company`s Managing Director, Dr. Idris Rashidi, told the committee that he wasn't aware why Barrick Tanzania pulled out of the project.
``This has come as a surprise to us because we banked our hopes on this project…we were shocked to learn that the financier had pulled out of the
project, `` the MD told the committee, indicating that he wasn't aware why Barrick had pulled out at the final stages.