Twenty-five years after its first gold pour, Geita Gold Mine stands as one of Tanzania’s defining mining success stories. A mine measured not only in ounces, but in jobs, suppliers, schools, hospitals, water systems, tax contribution, local enterprise and the people whose lives have grown with it.
As Geita enters its next underground chapter, the story is not simply one of mine-life extension. It is the continuation of a 25-year legacy: a legacy built in the region it serves, carried by Tanzanian workers and contractors, and shaped by the belief that the growth of the mine and the growth of the community around it could never be separated.
When Joachim Lusana arrived in Geita in 1994, he thought he was coming for three months.
He had travelled from Dar es Salaam as a young geology student, hired to gain field experience on a project that was still more possibility than mine. Geita, at the time, was not the town it is today. There were no good roads. No reliable water. No electricity. The landscape was difficult, the infrastructure was thin, and the idea that this remote part of north-western Tanzania would one day become home to one of Africa’s most important gold mining operations still required imagination.
The early team built what they called Geita Camp. They walked the ground from Longcone to Nyankanga and deep into Mgusu, collecting samples and examining rocks. For five years, from 1994 to 1999, they searched. Then they found what they had come for.
Gold.
By June 2000, the first ounce had been poured. Two months later, the late President Benjamin William Mkapa formally inaugurated Geita Gold Mine. For Lusana, and for many others around him, that moment did not simply mark the beginning of a mining operation. It marked the beginning of a new life.
Looking back, Lusana described the mine’s founding logic in terms that still explain Geita’s place in Tanzania today: “To meet the standards and capacity for international gold production, we had to start by building our community first because we believed that the change and growth of Geita town would greatly contribute to the growth of the mine, and the growth of the mine would greatly contribute to the development of Geita. We couldn’t separate these two things.”
That belief has become the thread running through Geita Gold Mine’s first 25 years.
Stories of Gold
Geita’s anniversary publication, Stori za Dhahabu — Stories of Gold — captures the spirit of the mine’s first quarter-century. The phrase matters because it changes the way the mine is understood. Geita’s legacy is not only the gold extracted from the ground. It is the value created above it.
Operated by AngloGold Ashanti, Geita Gold Mine is one of Tanzania’s flagship mining assets: a major gold producer, one of the country’s largest private-sector employers, a leading taxpayer, and a long-term partner to the region that carries its name. But its story is not told only in production figures. It is told in workers, contractors, local businesses, farmers, students, mothers, engineers, environmental officers and the community infrastructure that has grown around the mine.
AngloGold Ashanti’s 2025 operational profile records production of 492,000 ounces of gold at Geita, capital expenditure of $238 million and an attributable Mineral Reserve of 4.02 million ounces. Its workforce, including contractors, stands at 7,508 people. GGML’s own reporting describes a workforce that is overwhelmingly Tanzanian, with local nationals making up around 98% of employees and 77% of executive management.
In a mining town, those figures are never just figures. A job becomes school fees. It becomes a house built slowly over time. It becomes medical bills paid, siblings supported, land purchased, children educated and small businesses started by families whose stability began with mine employment.
Managing Director Ashraf Suryaningrat, in the mine’s anniversary publication, captures the wider responsibility clearly: “Our journey is not just about mining, but about protecting people’s lives by prioritising safety, environmental stewardship, and building trust by empowering our communities to benefit from the natural resources that surround them.”
That responsibility has also had a national dimension. Recent GGML reporting places the company’s total tax contribution to the Government of Tanzania at more than USD 3.7 billion over its period of operation, including USD 280.7 million in FY2024/25. In 2026, GGML was recognised with Presidential Taxpayer Awards as Tanzania’s Overall Most Compliant Taxpayer and Outstanding Tax Contributor for the 2024/2025 financial year.
Mining assets are often judged by production alone. Gold output matters. Costs matter. Reserves matter. But the fuller measure of a mine like Geita sits in the combination of production, governance, employment, procurement, taxes and long-term social value. That is why Geita’s 25-year story is not simply a corporate anniversary. It is a case study in how a mature African mine can become part of a national development framework.
T
he Next Chapter Underground
Every mature mine reaches a point where its future must be earned again.
At Geita, that moment is being met through an underground-led transformation designed to extend the mine’s operating life and strengthen its production platform into the 2030s. After years in which open-pit mining defined much of the operation’s public profile, the next chapter is increasingly underground.
The shift is significant. Underground mining changes the operating logic of a mine. It demands reliable access, carefully planned development, ventilation, ground support, dewatering, power stability, fleet availability, safety discipline and processing capacity. The infrastructure is less visible than an open pit, but no less demanding.
Geita’s underground journey has already been underway for several years. The decision to go underground at Star and Comet was taken in 2015, with underground development beginning in 2016. The Nyankanga underground operation began in 2017. Today, underground mining is conducted at Nyankanga while open-pit mining continues at Nyamulilima.
The current expansion programme builds on that transition. AngloGold Ashanti investor materials describe a pathway that could lift production toward approximately 600,000 ounces per annum, supported by plant and underground development studies intended to extend the mine’s opportunity into the mid-2030s. A detailed feasibility study is expected by 2027.
The expansion is therefore not a departure from Geita’s anniversary story. It is the next expression of it. The same mine that helped build roads, water systems, schools, health facilities, local suppliers and technical careers is now preparing itself for a future in which deeper mining, stronger infrastructure and greater Tanzanian participation will define the next phase of growth.
Local Content as Industrial Development
Geita’s local-content story is one of the most important parts of its legacy - and one of the clearest signs that the mine’s economic footprint extends far beyond direct employment.
As of April 2021, Geita reported that it was doing business with 602 locally owned businesses. In 2020, it recorded 86% of total procurement spend retained locally within Tanzania. Civil works, parts, services, food, catering, transport, accommodation, medication, IT, HR, construction, engineering and maintenance all form part of that local procurement picture.
This is where local content becomes industrial development.
A small supplier that works with Geita must learn to meet mining standards. It must understand documentation, safety, compliance, delivery schedules, quality expectations and audit requirements. Over time, that experience can turn a small company into a stronger contractor, a stronger contractor into a regional supplier, and a regional supplier into a partner capable of supporting other mining and infrastructure projects far beyond Geita’s perimeter fence.
AKO Group is one of the clearest examples. The company began providing catering and food services to GGM in 2012. According to Stori za Dhahabu, AKO grew from a few employees into an ISO-certified company employing more than 250 workers. The standards it built at Geita opened doors to other major national projects, including Kabanga Nickel, Mantra Uranium One Songea and the Mwalimu Nyerere hydropower dam.
Blue Coast offers another strong example. Its relationship with Geita strengthened in 2021 when it won a tender to transport fuel, beginning with 30% of the mine’s fuel supply. After two years of performance review, the company secured 80% of the mine’s fuel needs and transport services for mine operations over a further three-year contract. In that period, Blue Coast expanded its fleet, increased its operational scope and employed more than 500 Tanzanians.
The underground future gives this local-content story an even sharper technical meaning. The BG Umoja joint venture, structured as an 80/20 partnership between AUMS Tanzania, a subsidiary of Australia’s Perenti Group, and Geofields Tanzania, a local drilling services and mining supply company, was awarded a $186 million two-year mining contract for the Nyankanga and Geita Hill underground mining projects.
For a BE Global Infrastructure audience, the significance is precise. This is not local content operating at the edge of the mine. It is Tanzanian participation moving into the technical core of underground mining services — the drilling, development, ore extraction and operational delivery that defines what an underground mine actually produces.
Local content is strongest when it is connected to capability transfer. It should not only count how many suppliers are local. It should ask what those suppliers are learning, what standards they are meeting, what contracts they are winning, and whether they are becoming stronger, more technically capable and more commercially resilient because of the relationship.
The Partner Ecosystem Behind the Mine
No mine of Geita’s scale is built, sustained or renewed by one organisation alone.
Behind every production target sits an industrial ecosystem: mining contractors, equipment providers, electrical specialists, civil contractors, logistics partners, power technology companies, local suppliers, maintenance teams and smaller subcontractors whose work is often less visible than the final gold pour but no less essential to the outcome.
As Geita moves deeper underground, equipment availability affects development advance. Electrical systems affect safety and productivity. Ventilation, power, drilling, loading, haulage and maintenance must all work together with discipline, shift after shift.
Sandvik’s role in the underground equipment ecosystem is particularly specific. Geita Gold Mine and AUMS have ordered Sandvik Toro LH621i loaders and TH663i dump trucks for use at the mine — equipment aligned with rapid underground development and large-scale underground production. Epiroc operates within the same mechanised underground mining landscape, providing drilling systems and rock excavation technologies relevant to safe and efficient development.
Mantrac Tanzania forms part of the wider heavy equipment and support environment that large mining operations depend on for fleet reliability, service and uptime. Hitachi Energy Solution belongs to another critical layer of the story: the power and electrical infrastructure that must support a more reliable, efficient and lower-diesel operating future.
Alongside these international names are regional and Tanzanian suppliers whose importance lies in proximity, responsiveness and understanding of local operating conditions. Hildis East Africa, LLynx Supply and Services Limited and specialist subcontractors such as Recon Electrical represent the practical layer of the supply chain: companies supporting the mine through technical supply, electrical works, installation, maintenance, site services and project-specific delivery.
Together, they form part of the operating chain that allows Geita to deliver safely and consistently and a layer of local industrial capability that the mine has helped to develop over two and a half decades.
Power, Water and Shared Infrastructure
One of the clearest indicators of Geita’s next chapter is the move away from diesel-based power generation.
The mine has connected to the TANESCO grid through a 6.1km electricity distribution line linking Geita to Tanzania’s national power system. The shift is expected to reduce diesel use for power generation by an estimated 80% and cut carbon emissions by at least 50,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually.
For an underground mine, that is more than an environmental statement. It is an operational milestone. Ventilation, pumping, development equipment, workshops, processing systems, camp infrastructure and safety systems all depend on energy. As the mine’s underground footprint grows, the quality and resilience of its power supply becomes even more important. Sustainability and productivity are, at Geita, increasingly part of the same conversation.
If the power story shows Geita’s infrastructure at industrial scale, the water story shows it at human scale.
In Stori za Dhahabu, Anold Charles, a car wash owner in Geita, describes a time when water determined whether his business could open at all. Before reliable water access, he would wait for three or four hours at wells. Some days were lost before work could properly begin.
Then water became more reliable.
With access to piped water connected to GGM-supported infrastructure, Charles could run his business with greater confidence. He could use clean water, serve customers, employ more than ten people and compete in a local economy where car washes now appear across town. “Without this water,” he says, “I wouldn’t be here today managing my business with this confidence.”
The Nyankanga water project supports more than 300,000 residents of Geita town. The source is the Nyankanga dam, built and operated by Geita Gold Mine, with purification and chemical treatment carried out before the water reaches the community distribution system managed by GEUWASA. The system now produces between three and a half and four million litres per day.
That is infrastructure in its most direct form. A dam becomes a tap. A tap becomes a business. A business becomes employment. Employment becomes dignity.
The Community Around the Gold
Geita’s community story is not a soft appendix to the mining story. It is one of the central reasons the mine matters.
Following amendments to Tanzania’s Mining Act in 2017, Geita has spent more than TZS 52 billion executing community projects in partnership with local authorities. These projects span education, healthcare, water, roads, livelihoods and wider infrastructure.
The education story is particularly powerful because it shows the pressure created by population growth around a successful mining town. On 7 January 2020, the first day of the school year, more than 2,000 first-graders arrived for enrolment at one school. The number shocked even government officials. GGM joined hands with government and local authorities to build Maweni Primary School from the ground up, bringing services closer to children who had been travelling long distances or learning in severely overcrowded classrooms.
For one pupil, Witness Emmanuel, the change was transformative. Before Maweni, she studied in a class of more than 200 students, five to a desk, in heat and noise that made learning difficult. At Maweni, she found new classrooms, desks and teachers able to give students more individual attention. Her dream of becoming a lawyer felt closer.
In healthcare, the impact is equally personal. At Nzera District Hospital, GGM built a maternity ward and operating theatre. At Ibanda Health Centre, community members mobilised locally and GGM helped complete roofing, furnishing and staff accommodation. For mothers who once faced long night journeys to reach maternity care, that infrastructure changes the meaning of safety.
The same legacy reaches into livelihoods beyond mining. A few years ago, farmers in Kasota were farming by hand, with limited inputs and harvests often sufficient only for survival. In 2016, GGM, working with the Geita District Council, introduced productive and sustainable community projects designed to continue even after mining. The first 52 farmers gathered. They received a tractor and quality sunflower seeds. By 2018, the Kasota Sunflower Oil Processing Plant was built through partnership between the farmers, GGM and the Geita District Council.
The Nyabusakama AMCOS Cooperative has since grown to more than 400 members, with modern warehouse capacity, rice-husking machinery, sunflower oil production, training, access to inputs and guaranteed markets through GGM partners including AKO Group.
This is where the mining value chain touches agriculture. A mine creates demand for food supply. A catering partner creates demand for produce. Farmers gain a market. Cooperatives gain structure. Households gain income.
In that sense, the story of Geita is not only gold to market. It is gold to grain, gold to classrooms, gold to clinics, gold to water and gold to livelihoods.
The Human Measure of a Mine
The first 25 years of Geita can be counted in ounces, investment, taxes, contracts, employment and infrastructure. But the human measure of the mine is found elsewhere.
It is found in a worker who joined as a drilling assistant and became a supervisor. It is found in young professionals who entered through internships and developed into safety and environmental specialists. It is found in women in geology, environment, health, safety and leadership roles who are changing what mining looks like in Tanzania.
The anniversary publication tells the story of Shadya Jamali, who travelled to Geita for a job interview after surviving a serious bus accident. She arrived bandaged, in pain and without her glasses, but completed the interview and later secured an internship. She became a Safety Administrator in 2018, moved into the Environmental Department in 2020, and now works as an Environmental Officer managing waste, chemicals and sustainability systems. She is preparing to register as a Professional Engineer.
Her story is not simply inspiring. It demonstrates something important about Geita’s talent pipeline. The mine is not only employing Tanzanians. It is developing Tanzanian mining professionals.
The Kili Challenge, founded in 2002 through a partnership between GGM and the Tanzania Commission for AIDS, has for more than 23 years brought cyclists and climbers together to support the national fight against HIV/AIDS. Each year, the challenge aims to raise more than $1.5 million. Its impact extends to the Moyo wa Huruma Orphanage in Geita, built and sustained through Kili Challenge contributions and GGM’s ongoing support of TZS 200 million annually.
In July 2025, two children from the orphanage - Ibrahim Birago and Speciosa Lubumbila - joined GGM employees and partners for the Kilimanjaro ascent as part of the 25th anniversary Kili Challenge. Their participation gave the anniversary year one of its most resonant images: young people raised within a GGM-supported home stepping into one of Tanzania’s most visible national causes.
Responsible mining is not only about environmental management and tax compliance, though both are essential. It is also about care, consistency and presence.
The Next 25 Years
In his outlook for the next 25 years, Simon Shayo, AngloGold Ashanti Vice President – Sustainability & Corporate Affairs (Africa), frames the company’s purpose around “mining to empower people and advance societies.” It is a clear statement of intent: mining should translate visibly into livelihoods, inclusion, national participation, environmental protection, government revenue, infrastructure, health, education and the transfer of technology, knowledge and skills.
That is the standard by which Geita’s next chapter will be judged.
With underground expansion, plant infrastructure, power transition, tailings management, water systems and a deepening local supplier ecosystem, Geita is positioning itself as a long-life operation capable of remaining central to Tanzania’s mining sector into the 2030s.
But the deeper achievement may be this: Geita is showing how a mature African mine can renew itself without abandoning the legacy that made it important in the first place.
The first 25 years of Geita Gold Mine were written in exploration camps, open pits, first pours, classrooms, clinics, water systems, supplier yards, farms and the careers of thousands of Tanzanians.
The next chapter will be written differently. It will be written in shafts, ramps, ventilation raises, upgraded infrastructure, power systems, tailings facilities, water networks and underground stopes. It will be written by global technology providers, Tanzanian contractors, local subcontractors and the next generation of Geita employees.
But the measure will remain the same.
Not only how much gold Geita produces, but how deeply that gold continues to translate into shared value for its people, its partners, its region and Tanzania.
The golden stories of Geita are not over.
The best chapters are still being written.
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