By Masahudu Kunateh
Back from Geita & Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Communities in which gold are being mined are yet to see the benefit of hosting one of the world’s most sought-after commodities which currently trades at $1,325.46 per ounce on the international market today.
The poor nature of the roads, coupled with other basic amenities of life, makes living in Geita and its surrounding communities frightening, according to residents of the district.
A 65-year-old retiree, Ismael Dauda, who shares the same sentiments expressed by the over 800,000 people in the district added: ‘Look at the dusty and bumpy nature of our roads, if someone tells you that we produce gold here you would not agree’.
Journalists from Ghana and Uganda traveling to the gold-rich district, Geita District of the Mwanza Region of Tanzania, said it reminded them of the conditions back home.
The residents of the dry and windy district blamed their predicament on the Geita District Council and the Geita Gold Mine (GGM), owned by AngloGold Ashanti, a leading global gold producer operating in 11 countries and listed on five stock exchanges, including the Ghana Stock Exchange.
He continued: ‘I honestly wonder how the royalty meant for the district is being utilized. For over the past nine years that GGM is paying the royalty and if it was being correctly used, we would have seen some improvements in the district’.
Mr. Dauda, who has lived in the district for over three decades told Business Chronicle in an interview that the boom in the mining industry has only brought negative activities, including environmental degradation, high cost of living, stealing and rising illegal mining, inadequate compensation for affected farmers, overcrowding and joblessness to the district.
He added: ‘ Mining in the district not only contributes to forest and environmental degradation, changes in water tables, air pollution and other serious ecological impacts, but also indigenous people living adjacent to the mines benefit least from the positive mining effects’.
Worse still, gold mining takes away large tracts of agricultural land from farmers, but does not provide adequate jobs to offset subsequent employment in agriculture, the sector that is the foundation of the rural majority in the district, Mr. Dauda indicated.
He observed that the gains from the mining sector in the form of increased instruments are mostly achieved at significant environmental health and social costs to people. This is because mining activities account for serious consequences on the environment, locally and globally.
The retired teacher stated: “This situation has accelerated for the occurrence of a number of existing conflicts in mining sites reported in Geita District”.
Adams Hamisi, a former employee of GGM said that the multiple open-pit operation being practiced by GGM with underground potential, which is currently serviced by a 6Mtpa carbon-in-leach (CIL) processing plant causes harm to the environment, explaining that “Standard open-pit mining methods are employed: hard overburden is drilled and blasted, hydraulic excavators are used to load waste material into a fleet of 100t dump trucks exposing the gold-bearing ore material which is directed to the processing plant”.
Admittedly, the District Commissioner for Geita District, Manzie Mangochie said the contribution of mining to the district was minimal despite receiving $200,000 a year as royalty from GGM.
He told a team of journalists from Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania on a study tour to the Geita District to acquaint themselves to the challenges of the mining sector and that his district also contributed $100 million last year as revenue to the Tanzanian government for national development.
This amount pushed the district to become the second in the country in terms of revenue mobilisation for the country Mr. Mangochie hinted.
Reacting to the concerns that royalty accrued from the GGM was not properly utilized, he said the district was using chunk of it to provide basic amenities such as water, shelter, and school accommodation for the people.
Mr. Mangochie was quick to disclose that the district was working assiduously with the GGM to set aside 0.3% of its gross revenue for the development of the district.
Touching on compensation, he said the Geita District was also working with the central government and the GGM to ensure that farmers who lose their lands and farm crops are promptly and adequately compensated.
In his words: ‘We at the district would ensure that people affected by mining activities are being compensated fairly’.
However, the outspoken district commissioner emphasized that intruders or illegal miners on legal concession(s) have no right to compensation according to the new Tanzanian mining law.
Further adding his voice to the plethora of challenges confronting the health in the district, Mr. Mangochie said the district being new one lacks staff, shortage of medicines, inadequate, and poorly equipped hospitals for over 800,000 inhabitants in the district.
Because of the gold mine in the area, many young people from other parts of the country throng the district in search of jobs and other opportunities there. This influx of people to the area increases the number of people in the district thereby making the cost of living to go high, he stated.
Later, at Nyakabare, a mining village closer to Geita Gold Mine concession, illegal small scale miners busily grinding rocks stolen from the concession. An elder of the village, William Pawulo said they got the rocks from the concession which they grind to get an average of three kilograms of gold which they sell to dealers from Dar es Salaam, Kenyans, and others for a fee.
But another unlicensed small scale miner, Lordrick Samuel revealed that GGM employs about 45 people from the village and pays each 200, 000 Tanzanian Shillings ($125). Out of this amount, 40,000 Shillings ($25) is monthly deducted and paid to the village to undertake development projects.
‘This whopping amount is used to purchase desks and dispensary for village school clinic respectively’, he said.
In a bid to address the illegal mining activities in the district, District Commissioner for the Geita District, Manzie Mangochie, said the district regularly holds public rallies to educate young people about rules and dangers involved in illegal. While small parcels of lands are being allocated to legal small scale miners operating in the district.
The Geita District Resident Mines Officer and Inspector of Mines and Explosives at the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Sementa Juma Haruna added that plans were underway to support legal artisan and small scale miners to enable them undertake profitable and environmental friendly gold mining in the area.
He stated that ‘plans are underway to assist the small scale miners with finance from the Bank of Tanzania, while over 300 hectares of land are to be allocated to them soon’.
According to him, the ministry in collaboration with the Dodoma University also provides equipment at a fee to the small scale miners in the gold-rich district. While mining activities of Geita Gold Mine are being monitored by the ministry, he noted.