“We cannot continue to mourn about our country being poor while our minerals are lying untapped,” he said, adding that “at times I wonder whether those who are opposing this move are really patriotic.” The Tanzanian government (represented in the project as The National Development Corporation) continues to see the soda ash project as a way to reduce poverty, provide jobs, become self-sufficient, and increase revenues. On a tour in 2011, he reminded reporters that Lake Natron’s natural soda ash deposit was one of the richest in the world and he portrayed the plant as a path to national prosperity. Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete set an ambitious goal of nearly doubling Tanzania’s industrial sector by 2025. Isaacs government argues that the soda ash of Lake Natron is too economically enticing to ignore. MONGABAY NEWS NOVEMTanzania weighs new soda ash plant in prime flamingo territory by Jenny R.