Tanzania: Mengi Destroys Silverdale Farm: Part 2

In 2004, Benjamin Mengi sold (through Fiona Tanzania Ltd) the lease to Silverdale & Mbono Farms in the Hai District of the Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania, to British investor Stewart Middleton Silverdale Tanzania Ltd.

A year later Mengi tried to sell the lease again to British Investor Konrad Legg and demanded the lease back stating he had not been paid in full. When the investors refused, Mengi stated in front of RCO Kighondo, that he would drive the investor and his wife out of Tanzania cut up into pieces if necessary. The investors were then harassed, imprisoned, and intimidated by a four year campaign of violence and destruction of their investment.

In 2006 Noel Lindsay Smith of Mwindi Tea Company asked the British investors if he could renovate a property on Silverdale Farm and lease it for his family to live in.

The investors agreed but before a contract had been drawn up and signed, and whilst the investors were not present away on leave, Lindsay Smith entered the farm and demolished certain buildings and began to re build and renovate the property.

One month later, his contractors disappeared without any explanation to the investors and abandoned the investment of an approximate value of $40,000.

The investors were informed by a third party that Benjamin Mengi had telephone Lindsay Smith and told him that he owned the farms and that if Lindsay Smith did not leave, he would confiscate his investment.

Whilst the conduct of Lindsay Smith and Mufindi Tea Company was unconscionable, Benjamin Mengi was once again responsible for the theft and destruction of British investment.

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News & Politics

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