Whether on or in, if it’s my land, it’s my property

This fact was brought to light by an expert from the Natural Resources and Land Management Tanzania over the weekend at a Natural Resources and Land Management at a workshop held in Dar es Salaam. Subject to the provisions of this Act the entire property

The Mining Act 2010 places exclusive ownership of mineral in or on any land to the government. The part that covers ‘authority required for prospecting or mining’ states that;

‘No person shall, on or in any land to which this Act applies, prospect for minerals or carry on mining operations except under the authority of a mineral right granted or deemed to have been granted, under this Act. ‘

As the expert explained, this means that if you were to buy or inherit land somewhere in Tanzania, say at the foot of the gold rich Usambara mountains and you one day discovered that there is gold in the little stream that cro0sses your farm land, you have no legal rights over the gold.

Similarly, if you were to dig deeper into the land and found more gold, you would have no right to that gold except by exclusive licensing from the government.

And since the right to issue the mining license is vested on the government, then it follows that the responsible minister may very well opt to give the mining right to someone else.

It is shocking, discouraging and seems outright unfair. While on the one hand the country is working to push for legislation on Local Content in the extractive industries, that is for foreign companies to engage local workforce and other resources in their activities rather than importing, we are on the other hand telling natives that the land they own is only partially theirs.

This is so because the definition of land by law does not account for the minerals in it, that is to say, while you may believe that the definition of land to include both all natural aspects of a given area be it water, trees, or minerals as well as manmade aspects like buildings, fences, bridges and roads but that is not the case, at least not according to the Tanzanian Mining Act 2010.

Granted the complexity of land laws, more efforts must be applied to informing the general public and to do so in a language less like literal calculus.

When the goal is to get the people to understand, it defeats the purpose to complicate the explanation.

The law is indeed a proverbial maze that we pay a handful of professionals to traverse on our behalf by merit of utmost good faith. We simply believe that a lawyer will work in our best interest and do so to the best of their abilities.

However, you would do well to proactively seek to know our rights, lest you find gold on your land only to rudely learn that you have no right over it.