East African Mining News Unearthing Mining Opportunities in East Africa
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The mining sector in Tanzania has long carried the weight of promise, a sector rich in gold, gemstones, and strategic minerals and richer still in the rhetoric of broad-based economic transformation. From policy documents to political speeches, natural wealth must translate into national prosperity. Yet the Performance Audit Report by the Controller and Auditor General, published in March 2026, forces a difficult question into the open of whether Tanzanians are truly benefitting from their own resources.
At first glance, the story appears encouraging. Local employment in the mining sector increased by an impressive 171% between 2020 and 2024. Institutions have been established, guidelines developed and systems introduced. The Mining Commission has appointed local content focal persons and the National Economic Empowerment Council has issued multisectoral guidelines. On paper, the architecture of local content governance exists but beneath this progress lies a more troubling reality.
The audit reveals that whilst Tanzanian employment has increased, foreign employment has also risen by 63% over the same period. This parallel growth tells a deeper story, not of replacement or empowerment but of coexistence without transition. The expectation of local content policy is not merely participation but progression where Tanzanians gradually assume technical and managerial roles currently held by foreign experts. Instead, what the audit finds is stagnation in critical areas. Foreign employees continue to dominate high-skilled and managerial positions and earn considerably higher salaries than their Tanzanian counterparts in similar roles. In procurement, the imbalance is even starker between 2020 and 2024, only 33% of procurement was sourced locally, compared to 67% from foreign suppliers.
The systemic nature of the enforcement failures is perhaps the most striking finding. Out of 1,736 approved Local Content Plans in the 2024/25 financial year, only 24 audits were planned. Over a five-year period, only 54 audits were conducted across more than 4,000 approved plans, a coverage rate of less than 2%. Without regular audits, local content plans risk becoming procedural formalities rather than enforceable commitments. The audit also found that none of the reviewed plans had evidence of submission dates, approval processes were delayed by up to 330 days and incomplete plans were approved without comment.
On capacity development, training programmes have largely focused on operating existing equipment rather than fostering innovation or technological independence. Technology transfer remains limited, with no comprehensive national plan guiding the process. Local value addition stands at 53.8% for metallic minerals and just 38.7% for gemstones, suggesting that a significant portion of Tanzania’s mineral wealth continues to be exported in raw or minimally processed form. The Ministry of Minerals has not effectively collaborated with the Ministry of Industry and Trade or research institutions to promote local value addition and no comprehensive database of local suppliers has been established.
Tanzania stands at a critical juncture. The mining sector continues to grow, attracting investment and generating revenue. But growth alone is not enough. The true measure of success lies in whether that growth translates into jobs, skills, industries and opportunities for Tanzanians. The policies exist, the institutions are in place and the vision is clear but policy without implementation is aspiration and aspiration, as this audit shows, is not the same as delivery.
