A report by the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) shows that Tanzania’s mining sector lacks a functional regulatory system that should benefit its local communities and not just mining companies.

The report tabled before the assembly yesterday, was compiled by the committee on agriculture, tourism, and natural resources who conducted a site tour of Tanzania’s extractive industries.   

"We went to Mwanza, and Shyinyanga, to visit the gold mines. We saw that there is clear lack of transparency and according to the people we met, there is need to look into the contracts and review them to address these issues of benefit,” the committee chairperson George Francis Nangale (Tanzania) said.

The tour, the first of its kind in the region, will see the MPs visit the remaining four Partner States of Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and Burundi to assess the impact of mining on their respective local populations.

Nangale, who also tabled the motion before the house, explained that the purpose of the tour was to assess the environmental impact mining activities have on the local communities especially after the conclusion of these projects. 

In the recommendations of the report, the lawmakers said they want local populations in the region to play an active role in identifying projects and initiatives in the sector and also have national assemblies review legislations relating to the extractive sector.   

The MPs said that the mines only benefit the owners and that there is no regulation on the quantity and quality of minerals exported to western countries, a claim Tanzania’s minister for EAC affairs Diodorus Kamara, an EALA member, refuted.

"The Government has full time experts at all the mines and their work is to check whatever is exported, whether they are trustworthy or not is another issue,” Kamara said.

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