TUESDAY December 9, 2025
By The Tranquility News Correspondent, Tanzania
What began six years ago as a high-stakes experiment in how a government and a global mining giant could share the riches buried beneath Tanzania’s red earth is now reshaping life far beyond the pit.
In 2019, after bruising disputes over taxes and ownership, Tanzania stunned the mining world by forging a joint venture with Canada’s Barrick Gold.
The partnership — Twiga Minerals Corporation — was named after the giraffe, a symbol of vision and stature in Swahili culture.
At the time, it was billed as a bold new model for resource nationalism: Neither expropriation nor laissez-faire, but a shared enterprise.
Few imagined that one of its brightest successes would emerge not in the gold vaults, but in the health clinics of remote north-western villages.
This week, on a humid Thursday morning in Tarime District, the Barrick’s North Mara Mine officially handed over a freshly built dispensary — a modest, cream-painted structure costing 164 million Shillings — to local authorities.
The clinic sits at Mangucha, a sparsely served village tucked deep inside Nyanungu Ward, just east of the Tarime District’s administrative centre.
The facility was financed through the mine’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme, implemented jointly with the government under the Twiga partnership.
For residents, it is more than a building; it is a long-awaited reprieve from years of trudging long distances to seek basic treatment.
“We have already paid Tanzania Shillings 95 million (about $37,760) to the contractor, and the remaining TSh69 million (about $28,049) is being processed,” said Zacharia Sendama, Tarime’s Acting District Executive Director, during the handing over ceremony attended by local leaders and villagers.
This dispensary removes a huge burden from our people,” Tarime Acting District Medical Officer Albinus Kirina.
Albinus Kirina, speaking on behalf of the district’s Chief Medical Officer, said the clinic would serve some 4,460 Mangucha residents who previously had to walk many kilometres to the nearest health post.
“This dispensary removes a huge burden from our people,” he said.
District Administrative Secretary Saul Mwaisenye — officiating on behalf of the District Commissioner — praised the project’s workmanship.
“I am satisfied with the quality and the value for money,” he said before cutting the ceremonial ribbon.
But the excitement did not eclipse practical concerns. Mwita Waitara, MP for Tarime Rural, urged health officials to immediately allocate some rooms for maternity care while the construction of dedicated maternal and neonatal buildings is awaited.
“It would make little sense if mothers cannot give birth here,” he said.
The chorus of gratitude was loud. Matera Newland Chacha, Chairman of the Tarime District Council, pledged ongoing cooperation with the mine, while Nyanungu Ward Councillor Tiboche Richard said the community would remain “ambassadors” of the project. “We are very grateful,” he added.
Barrick North Mara Mine’s Community Relations Manager Francis Uhadi said health was one of the mine’s priority sectors for the CSR funds — second only to education in investment share.
“Health accounts for 20 per cent of all our CSR spending so far,” he said.
Since 2020, he noted, the mine had invested TSh5.4 billion (about $2.2 million) in clinics, health centres, health care staff housing, and medical equipment across Tarime District.
For 2025 alone, it is implementing 21 health projects worth TSh2.4 billion (about $975,610), most of them nearing completion.
Mangucha’s dispensary, now fully furnished, is the first of several handovers expected in the coming months.
“This handover is proof of what close cooperation between the mine, the district council, and the community can achieve,” Uhadi said.
Among the villagers, pride mingled with relief. Kemahi Irumbe Mgesi, the Mangucha Village Chairman, said residents would safeguard the new facility “for the benefit of the present generation and those to come.”
As the crowd drifted away from the ribbon-cutting, elders lingered near the clinic’s doorway, running their hands along its new walls.
In a region long defined by tensions and inequalities of gold mining, the small dispensary stood as a rare symbol — that a partnership once forged to settle disputes could also deliver something far more precious than ore: a measure of trust, and a chance for better healthΩ
