By putting buyers, assayers and revenue officers in one supervised place, Tanzania converted a smuggling problem into a taxable flow. Declared artisanal gold rose substantially, and the model is now the reference case cited in Ugandan and Kenyan formalisation debates.

The centres are not a full traceability system: they record the point of sale, not the pit of origin, and gold from neighbouring countries can and does enter the system.

Assay integrity, the spread between centre prices and international spot, and whether small-scale licence holders retain title to the ground they sell from.

Each centre brings licensed buyers, government assayers and revenue officials into one place, so royalties and inspection fees are collected at the point of sale rather than chased afterwards. Declared artisanal gold rose sharply once the network was in place from 2019.

The model is now the reference point for formalisation across the region, and both Uganda and Kenya have studied it while stopping short of replicating the enforcement that makes it work.

For diggers, the centres shortened the chain to a licensed buyer and produced a documented price, but they did not remove the credit relationships that lock producers into selling to whoever financed their pit.

Mercury use upstream of the centres remains largely untouched, since the system regulates the sale rather than the processing.