How Gold Diggers, Rent Seekers Strip Tanzania's Wealth

Year after year, the Tanzanian government loses massive amounts of gold through smuggling by transnational criminal networks. Problems within the gold mining sector contribute to the smuggling. These include conflicts of interest between multinational mining corporations and local small-scale artisanal miners, and a lack of enforcement of mining regulations resulting in non-compliance by companies.

There are fewer than 10 foreign gold mining corporations in Tanzania, yet over a million artisanal miners, of which two-thirds are in the gold sector. "Gold smuggling networks in the country comprise local influential families who move the goods to contacts mainly in Kenya, South Africa, and India", Luckystar Miyandazi, an international tax specialist and Tanzania mining sector researcher said.

In 2020, five states were implicated in helping a criminal network smuggle 27.4 kg of gold worth U.S.$1.25 million in June and 15.4 kg of gold worth U.S.$776 000 in December. In 2019, suspects were arrested also trying to smuggle 323.6 kg out of the country.

In April 2021, President Samia Suluhu Hassan said dialogue between players in the mining sector was crucial.

With the political will of the new administration, decisive law enforcement could see Tanzania take on the problem from many angles to the benefit of all its people, writes the East Africa Regional Coordinator, ENACT Project Mohamed Daghar, for the Institute for Security Studies.