19 Jun 2014

Both African Barrick Gold (ABG) and Barrick Gold Corporation are committed to ethical and transparent business practices in compliance with the law. ABG engages regularly with local and national government officials in Tanzania to determine the fair value of land the company wishes to purchase from local land owners. This process takes place under the Lands Task Force agreement authorized by the Tanzanian government. The Lands Task Force was created to facilitate a transparent, fair and inclusive process to value land, which ABG strongly supports. The Lands Task Force has also received support from local communities:
(http://www.europeangoldforum.org/egf14/egf14-webcast/egf14-webcast-stream.html)

As part of this program, ABG provides modest financial support to government officials participating in land valuation activities as per the government of Tanzanian published standardized rate for various levels of the government officials. Items and amounts eligible for reimbursement are set out in a memorandum of understanding with the government of Tanzania, and a process is in place to ensure full legal compliance. Cash is often the only viable method of payment because in many regions of the country, banking infrastructure and services are extremely limited, or sometimes not available at all. All such payments are carefully documented, monitored and controlled.

To verify compliance, Barrick and ABG retained a leading U.S. law firm to conduct a review of processes and payments related to the Land Task Force, which concluded that ABG has acted appropriately in all instances, in accordance with Tanzanian, U.S., and U.K. law.

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