Mwanza. Mineral minister Antony Mavunde has urged stakeholders of the mining sector, including artisanal miners, to ensure the activities of adding value to their precious stones are carried out in local industries so that they can contribute to boosting the country's economy and earnings.
The minister has also hinted on the decision of the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) to begin to buy gold, saying that BoT will, to start with, buy six tonnes of gold in the 2023/24 financial year.
Mr Mavunde made the statements Thursday on January 4, 2023, when he visited and inspected a gold smelting and refining factory located in the Sabasaba area, Ilemela District, Mwanza Region.
"Exporting minerals is a huge waste of Tanzanian money, so our strategy is to ensure that we set effective plans in the mining sector to add value to minerals so that the Government can benefit because we are quite aware that if value addition is done in the country, the jobs of Tanzanians will be protected.
“I know that many mineral dealers have been receiving money from their foreign counterparts to buy minerals in the country for them because they do not have enough capital
“So, the Government now has made interventions to ensure, through a guarantee fund, it empowers local mineral dealers, including medium-and-large scale miners, by giving them loans so as to revitalize mining activities in the country," said Mr Mavunde.
For his part, the Chairman of the gold smelting refining factory, Deusdedith Magala, has said that in the period from July 2023 to December they have managed to buy more than 587 kilogrammes of gold worth over $32 million (over Sh72 billion).
"The factory is capable of buying any amount of gold that will be available and paying for it instantly by considering the international market and this factory is located in the central area of the Lake Zone regions that lead in producing gold in the country.
The challenge we have been facing here is that gold is not obtained in large quantities, perhaps because there is not enough education, and high customs duties when foreign dealers enter the country to buy minerals, we ask the Government to scrap it so that we can get more customers," said Mr Magala.
