Press Release
Yes, We Have Better Minerals but Lack a Better Ideology

The discovery of Niobium and other rare earths whose estimated worth at $100m in the Kwale region of South Coast is good news. This discovery was made by Cortec which is owned by Pacific Wildcat Resources of Canada. It should be remembered that in Maumba area also in the Kwale region, already there is a company from Australia called Base Titanium Limited. By the end of the year, it will be exporting thousands of tonnes of ilmenite mineral. And in Turkana, Tullow Company of Britain is in a rush to drill for oil. These are all evidences of huge wealth in natural resources in Kenya.

However, Hizb ut Tahrir / East Africa clearly views that these resources will not benefit the ordinary citizens due to the evil economic ideology of Capitalism and its corrupt policies of resource ownership and its privatization. Western Capitalist countries under their corrupt thoughts of ‘freedom of ownership' and ‘free markets' influence African governments by bribing them with money so as to allow their companies to conduct land and sea research activities. Thereafter, these companies are given mineral mining licenses and sale whereby a major portion of the profit ends in the hands of the owners of such companies. Therefore, based on these wrong policies, we state that the discovery of minerals in Kenya and Africa in general will never alleviate poverty which continues to strangle the African continent.

This being one viewpoint, the other one which is very disheartening is where government leaders after allowing foreign companies to plunder public resources, they later on disregard their own citizens who are wallowing in poverty. Most of the time, the health of such citizens is never well taken care of due to pollution from the mining activities. Instead, they are left to live like refugees after their houses are demolished and being paid meager amounts as compensation. This is the true face of Capitalist leaders who neglect their responsibilities of taking care of public affairs despite collecting taxes from the foreign companies whom they give mining licenses. It is clear that such taxes collected from these companies are finally misappropriated by leaders.

Hizb ut Tahrir / East Africa clearly highlights that it is only the Islamic economic system that enables citizens to benefit from mineral resource wealth. Islam has prohibited freedom of ownership and elaborated clearly the types of ownership which are private ownership, public ownership and state ownership. Islamic Shariah prohibited privatization of public property and nationalization of private property. On the same note, Islam prohibited individuals, companies and groups from owning public property like oil, power generating sources and minerals. Islam highlighted that it is the responsibility of government to be custodian of incomes from such resources according to Shariah laws to ensure that the public benefit from them. With that, the Islamic ideology with its economic system is the only one that has a true solution to all economic problems starting with distribution of resources to protecting public property like minerals. This is a system from the Creator of the world who clearly knows the condition of His servants.

[أَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَنْ خَلَقَ وَهُوَ اللَّطِيفُ الْخَبِيرُ]

"Does He not know, Who created? And He is the Knower of the subtleties, the Aware." [Al-Mulk: 14]

Shabani Mwalimu
Media Representative
Hizb ut Tahrir / East Africa