The Mining (Local Content) Regulations, 2018 have been amended by the Mining (Local Content) (Amendment) Regulations, 2025 to bring a number of changes. We set out below the changes that we believe, need to be understood.
On the Definition section, a definition of the term “Tanzanian Financial Institution” has been introduced to mean a financial institution that has been registered under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act. This narrows down the range of entities falling within the definition of Financial Institutions in Tanzania. Apart from bringing clarity on the regulation, it also bars other entities that are not registered from taking advantage thereof.
Before the amendment the law was very wide to include “other allied entities” to Contractors, Sub – Contractors and Corporations within the United Republic of Tanzania. Now the phrase other allied entities has been deleted from the list.
Further, before the amendment, a nonindigenous company had to incorporate a joint venture company with an indigenous Tanzanian company to be able to provide goods or services to a contractor, sub – contractor, licensee or a corporation within the United Republic of Tanzania. Now, a non-indigenous company can establish a joint venture with an already existing indigenous Tanzanian company which is owned 100% by citizens and which operates on the same business as the goods or services intended to be supplied. There is no need to incorporate a joint venture company for that purpose.
Given the changes in the law, it is now a requirement for the joint venturers to submit their Joint Venture Agreement to the Commission for approval. This replaces the requirement of submission of a plan by a Joint Venture company. The Impact brought by this change is involvement of all Parties. The former position required submitting a plan; a plan is made by one party, yet a joint venture agreement presupposes involvement of more than one side. Also, the requirement of approval now presupposes direct involvement of the Mining Commission.
Of great interest under the amendment is the exemption from requirement for the indigenous Tanzania company to hold equity of 20% if the goods or services fall under the exemptions provided. Prior to the amendment, the regulation simply required the local company to be afforded a 20% equity; however, after the amendments although the 20% equity requirement is still there, there is a proviso that the equity requirement applies only where the goods and services in question have not been exempted under the law.
The amendments require the Commission to publish, from time to time, in the Government Gazette, on the Commission’s website, and in media of nation-wide circulation, a list of goods and services that are exclusively to be provided by an indigenous Tanzanian company that is 100% owned by Tanzanians.
The aspect of local content has also been touched. The requirement to submit a Local Content Plan that includes a financial services sub plan has been removed and replaced with submission of a banking services sub plan and a procurement sub plan.
The amendments now relieve the Commission from the task of establishing bid evaluation guidelines. The intention of the deleted provisions was to ensure that the year-on-year progression of the local content objectives were met. Now that the requirement has been removed, it means the Commission will not be involved in establishing bid evaluation guidelines.
The amendment has also introduced a threshold for informing the Commission of proposed Contracts and Purchase Orders. A contractor, subcontractor, licensee or other allied entity is required to inform the Commission in writing of each proposed contract or purchase order related to mining activities which is to be sole sourced and whose value is estimated to be over an amount in Tanzania shillings, equivalent to ten thousand United States Dollars.
The Third Schedule has been amended in that it now provides for the information to be provided by a contractor, subcontractor, licensee or other allied entity to the Commission prior to issue of expression of interest instead of prior to issue of prequalification of prospective bidders. The well detailed list now has only three provisions. In that a licensee or contractor is now required to provide (a) a description of the scope of work; (b) prequalification criteria; and (c) number of days for the submission of EOI once the tender is advertised. The amended Schedule also states that the Minimum number of days for EOI submission shall be seven (7).