Govt Collects Three Years' Worth of Tanzanite Royalties

Tanzania Minister for Minerals Angellah Kairuki has told parliament that it has collected over U.S.$269,000 in royalties from tanzanite artisanal miners in three months, from January to March 2018 which is more than what it collected in the last three years.

The government said on Thursday that it has collected Sh614.67 million as royalty from tanzanite artisanal miners in three months, from January to March this year.

This is more than what it collected in the last three years.

The Minister for Minerals Ms Angellah Kairuki said the increase followed the controlling of the tanzanite mining.

Last year, the Speaker of the National Assembly Mr Job Ndugai formed a special committee to investigate tanzanite mining which recommended controlling the mining.

President John Magufuli also ordered fencing the tanzanite mining area as a way of controlling it.

"Due to such steps, the government collected Sh714.67 million as royalty for three months with Sh614.67 million being from artisanal tanzanite miners," said Mrs Kairuki.

According to her, in 2015 the government collected Sh166.85 million as tanzanite royalty from the artisanal miners, Sh71.86 million in 2016 and Sh147.14 million in 2017.

Mrs Kairuki was tabling her ministry's budget for 2018/19.

The budget has increased from Sh52.445 billion in the current financial year to Sh58.9 billion in the next financial year.

She also said that only 36 per cent of the current budget was released by March this year and just 3.8 per cent of the development budget was released.