Two Tanzanite stones transform the life of an artisanal miner into a millionaire

Text by: Stanislas Ndayishimiye

This story from Tanzania is worthy of a fairy tale. Fairies who have looked at this artisanal miner who has just become a millionaire, after discovering two of the largest fragments of tanzanite ever found in the country. Tanzanite is a precious stone particularly present in the subsoil of this East African country.

Publicity

7.7 billion Tanzanian shillings, or almost 3 million euros (precisely 2,967,706, 28 euros), it was at this price that Saniniu Kuryan Laizer sold two pieces of precious stone weighing 9.27 and 5, 1 kg to the State (the Central Bank of Tanzania).

The artisanal miner will therefore not have had the freedom to offer the product of his discovery to the highest bidder. On the international gemstone market, the two tanzanite ingots would be worth twenty times more than the price it pocketed. But it's still the jackpot for him and he doesn't complain about it. The 52-year-old man plans to invest in the construction of a shopping center in Arusha and a school near his home where, he says, " many poor people do not have the opportunity to send their children to school. "

Hunting contraband and slinging against foreign mining companies

Saniniu Kuryan Laizer discovered the two fragments of tanzanite at Mererani, near Mount Kilimanjaro in the north of the country. An area that Tanzanian President John Magufuli decided to surround with a wall two years ago, to control the production of tanzanite and fight against illegal exports of this precious stone (a blue-violet gem), considering that 40% of national production was lost in contraband.

Since coming to power in late 2015, John Magufuli has engaged in a showdown with major foreign mining companies operating in Tanzania. He accuses them of having undervalued their production of gold, diamonds and tanzanite among others and he estimates that the shortfall in taxes and royalties for the country has been estimated at several tens of billions of dollars for the past twenty years.

Three years ago, Tanzania adopted new legislation, which requires foreign companies to give the state 16% of their shares in each mining project.

Newsletter Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• Tanzania