THE GREATEST GOOD OF THE GREATEST NUMBER?MINERAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN TANZANIA

Tanzania is gifted with significant wealth of minerals including gold, tanzanite, diamonds and other minerals which are essential to the nation’s development plan. Nevertheless, the paradox of such wealth from the minerals co-exist with the persistent poverty in Tanzanian community raising utility concern on the effectiveness of resources governance. Tracing from moral and political aspects of Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy, specifically on his dictum “greatest good of the greatest number”, this article dives to explicate the degree to which Tanzania’s mineral wealth complies the public good. The article examines the dual impact of mining activities in their effect to employment, infrastructure, Gross Domestic Product and foreign exchange, and its negative effects such as environmental degradation, displacement and inequitable benefit distribution. Using utilitarian philosophy, the article assesses the mining policies and acts on how they serve the greatest good of the greatest number. The critique of TunduLissu is integrated on transparency and resource nationalism as explicated in his work In Gold We Trust: The Political Economy of Law. It is found that the existing structures do not comply with utilitarian ideal because the benefits are concentrated among the few actors, leaving local communities marginalized. The article makes a conclusion by recommending legal and policy reforms aiming at equitable benefit sharing and moral governance to ensure that mineral wealth brings the greatest good of the greatest number of Tanzanians.