TMAA evaluates tasks in curbing mineral smuggling

Minister for Finance, Ms Saada Salum Mkuya

 FOR the first time the government on Friday tabled the CANADIAN Deputy Minister of International Development Mr Malcom Brown has commended the government through the Tanzania Mineral Audit Agency (TMAA) for supporting the country’s economic growth.

This follows reports that TMAA has managed to combat mineral smuggling and illegal trade such that it has established a special desk on major airports in the country to curb illegal mineral smugglers.

TMAA is mandated to monitor and audit quality and quantity of minerals produced and exported by large, medium and small scale miners; to determine revenue generated to facilitate collection of payable royalty.

It also makes audit capital investment and operating expenditure of the large and medium scale mines for the purpose of gathering taxable information and providing the same to the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and other relevant authorities.

Mr Brown who was in Mwanza recently, praised the agency for working tirelessly to ensure Tanzanians benefited from the minerals. His tour follows a signed arrangement between his country and Tanzania, on 7th March 2013 to support TMAA’s five years strategic plan.

The plan started from the 2012/13 fiscal year where Canadian government supported the country Canadian Dollars 2,500,000 in the mineral sector which has to be disbursed annually at Canadian Dollars 500,000 per fiscal year.

“We have realised the support we gave the government of Tanzania and we can see the progress through the issues conducted by TMAA in the mineral sector”, the minister who was accompanied by High Commissioner of Canada to Tanzania Hon. Alexandre Lévêque and other Canadian officials was quoted as saying.

He commended the government for creating better environment which enabled small scale miners in the country become the middle income earner.

“This is our familiarisation tour, but for sure we are now aware of what you have been doing in this sector and I congratulate all of you”, he said.

The TMA Chief Executive Officer Engineer Dominick Rwekaza said Tanzania is a huge country, with a lot of borders. TMAA had to establish offices from major airports with the intention of verifying the legality of documents used for exporting minerals to avoid illegal exports.

“We are still brainstorming on the best approach in other borders like Sirari, our aim is to ensure there is no existence of illegal exports,” he said.

TMAA has so far received Canadian dollars 1,000, 000 as an assistance which supported the agency’s efforts to maximise government revenue and combat mineral smuggling.

“We appreciate continued support from Canada to ensure sustainability of the extractive industry,” he said, adding that the role of TMAA was to audit the quantity and quality of minerals produced, financial and environmental activities on major, medium and small mining companies in the mainland.

A number of success have been achieved since the agency established airport desks in July 2012, where various minerals worth USD 9.9m/- were confiscated.

“We have also enhanced public on the way the government administers the sector and environment audits conducted by TMAA on major mines have enabled respective mines to improve environment management activities,” he says.

According to Eng Rwekaza, TMAA has also stationed auditors at the airports in order to inspect and verify minerals transported in and outside the country.

In the period of 14 years ( 2000- 2013) it has collected a total of 334.6m/- USD as royalty paid by seven large scale mines. “In combating mineral smuggling and illegal trade, we are also providing awareness on the implications of mineral smuggling and provision of incentives for information leading to counteracting the crime,” he says.

He says according the great achievement reached by the agency, eight African countries have visited the agency in order to learn about its activities.

He mentioned those countries as Sierra Leone, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Algeria, Zambia and Kenya.“

Two countries Kenya and Sierra Leone have adopted TMAA model by establishing Government entities with similar responsibilities, this is a great achievement to us,” he says He however says TMAA has paid 368.m/- USD in the period of six years as a corporate income tax and local service levy paid to host district councils based on TMAA inputs amounts to USD 5.4m/-.

“Royalty payments from Large Scale Mines has increased from USD 24.3m/- in the year 2007 to USD 70.2m/- in 2014, additional royalty paid from strategic audit conducted on both Small and Medium Scale Miners facilitated collection of USD 7m/- as royalty from June 2011 to December 2014”, he says.

“We are also assessing whether enough funds have been allocated for environmental management activities,” he said. TMAA in collaboration with Zonal Mines Offices is conducting strategic audit in areas where there is potential government revenue from mineral royalties.

Since its inception, TMAA has carried such audit in the both gold production and sales from VAT reaching operations in the regions of Geita, Mwanza and Mbeya.

“Other auditing is carried out to building materials and industrial minerals in Central, Eastern, Lake Victoria and Nyasa, Northen, Southern, South Western zones,” he says, adding that gypsum and copper ore are audited in Kigoma and Katavi regions while other gold rush audit is taking place in the areas of Lukwika and Tumbelo.

“TMAA Mineral Auditors observe all smelting sessions in their respective gold rooms which include pouring, marking, weighing and sampling of ingots”, he says, adding, “Samples of exported gold bars are then provided to the TMAA laboratory for assaying to determine the quality and quantity of fine gold and silver contained, thereafter, the gross value of exported minerals and payable royalty is computed by applying mineral prices obtained from the London Metal Exchange (LME)”.