The Manager, Planning, Research and Development of the Tanzania Mineral Audit Agency, Julius Moshi says countries without mineral laboratories to test the purity of their mineral resource are always cheated by mining companies.

He said the absence of such laboratories is a major source of revenue loss to the government.

Julius Moshi said there is the need for government to closely monitor the minerals produced and to check the quality and quantity of those minerals- something that is done in the laboratories. 

With the laboratory, Moshi believes government would have the right information on the exact calculation of the royalties due government.

He made the comment during a visit to Tanzania Minerals Audit Agency (TMAA) by ten journalists from the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ).

The visit funded by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) was to give the reporters the opportunity to study what Tanzania was doing in the extractive industry.

Tanzania is rich in mineral resource including gold, diamond, Green Tourmaline iron ore, uranium, copper, Sapphire, the Tanzanite, a gem found only in Tanzania among others. Started in the mid-1990s, the mining industry in Tanzania is fast growing.

To ensure governments maximize revenue from this sector, the Tanzania Minerals Audit Agency (TMAA) was established.  

It is a semi-autonomous agency aimed at ensuring government maximizes profit from the mining industry through monitoring and auditing of mining operations.

TMAA established in 2009 has recorded good performances in recouping revenue from the mining sector.

A total of 310.66 billion Tanzania shillings was collected by the government as royalty and taxes from the large scale mines.

The Tanzania Mineral Audit Agency (TMAA) in collaboration with other government authorities also in the last 15 months foiled 69 incidents of mineral smuggling and saved 9 billion shillings in royalties.

Mr. Moshi said the laboratory is used as proof to show what is produced in the mines and what is actually exported.

He said they are also able to ascertain the exact quality of minerals exported and by so doing there is no room for companies to cheat the government.

Mr. Moshi said revenue from mining companies has increased greatly since the establishment of the laboratory.

Ghana currently has no laboratory where testing of the samples can be done to determine the purity of gold and other minerals in the country.

The mining companies  send their samples to South Africa for testing and the results brought in but this Mr. Moshi said creates room for cheating.

The cost for the establishment of a laboratory is 500 hundred thousand US dollars.