Mineral centre in the offing to control tanzanite

Babati. Manyara Region, the home of famous tanzanite gemstones, wants to set up mineral buying centres, it was announced here at the weekend.

The centres would ease and control the buying of minerals and ensure mineral traders paid the required dues to the government.

“Beneficiaries will be the traders who would have easy access to reliable markets,”said the Regional Commissioner, Mr Alexander Mnyeti.

He was speaking during a meeting of industry stakeholders, purposely convened to enable them go through the recently released draft regulations on mineral markets.

He ordered that the mineral buying centres be constructed in all districts with mineral deposits and where commercial mining is underway.

Already one such centre has been established at Mirerani, the only site in the world where the rare, blue-violet tanzanite gemstones are found and mined for years.

MrMnyeti did not hint where other mineral buying centres would be constructed in the region with five districts namelySimanjiro, Mbulu, Hanang, Kiteto and Babati.

Understandably, however, small to large scale commercial mining has been reported in Mbulu, Kiteto and Babati Districts in recent years, especially of gemstones.

Besides tanzanite, Manyara Region is said to have rich deposits of ruby in Kiteto and Simanjiro, emerald (Babati) gold (Mbulu and Kiteto) and salt in Hanang.

Tourmarline, a semi-precious stone which comes in a variety of colours, is also found in abundance in various parts of the vast and sparsely populated region.

The RC said the proposed mineral buying centres would enable the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) to collect the required taxes.

Speaking during the meeting, the resident mining officer with Simanjiro district Daudi Ntalima said recommendation on the draft regulations would be forwarded to the government.

Among them is that minerals would be auctioned through a voucher system after the prices are released by the Tanzania Minerals Commission

The move has, however, been criticised by the chair of tanzanite dealers Mr. Money Yousuph who said it would marginalize them in the business.