For years, Shire was a quiet waypoint in Tigray’s artisanal gold corridor. Over the past twelve months it has become something else entirely: a magnet for bullion and a flashpoint in a fast‑moving story that touches smuggling routes, border politics, public health, and the credibility of Ethiopia’s export boom. At the center is the National Bank of Ethiopia’s (NBE) Shire branch, which has reported an abrupt, extraordinary jump in gold supply, so large that even officials inside the system are asking how it happened.
The headline figures are striking; Tigray’s Mining Bureau says roughly 19 tonnes of gold were delivered to the Shire branch in 2024/25, close to 80 times the previous year’s volume. A report by Ethiopia’s Ministry of Mines places national gold delivered to the NBE at about 39 tonnes for the year, underpinning record export earnings of some USD 3.45 billion, nine times 2023/24.
The official line credits currency reforms and higher purchase premiums for drawing supply into formal channels. Market insiders interviewed for the investigation offer a blunter explanation: Shire’s premiums have become a beacon, pulling in lower‑grade or clandestinely sourced gold from other Ethiopian regions and across borders, to be blended with higher‑purity local output and sold on to the NBE at elevated prices.
That contention, if borne out, raises difficult questions – Sources describe networks spanning Eritrea and Sudan, some linked to military actors near the frontier, moving metal toward Shire in exchange for cash and commodities such as coffee, teff, cement and even solar panels. In parallel, conflict‑linked traders in Sudan reportedly use Shire as a laundering point. The flow is not one‑way: the same routes, insiders say, are implicated in human trafficking. Late last month (July), according to a well‑placed source, the NBE branch flagged adulterated consignments, freezing parts of the market and highlighting how thin formal controls can become when volumes and premiums spike.
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The Tigray Interim Administration (TIA) has begun to probe the surge. A committee is assessing the region’s gold economy, and the mining bureau, now under new leadership, is being restructured along with Ezana Mining. Mining activity has reportedly paused in many areas, driven less by a formal order than by a cholera outbreak that has disrupted operations.
Even so, officials remain wary of declaring the year’s numbers an uncomplicated success. “Tigray and the country are not benefiting as much as they should from the gold resources,” says Birikti Gebremedhin, the bureau’s head. “Mining operations must be environmentally sustainable and a resource for the next generation. If we let the mining continue the way it is now, it will pose very serious complications.”
Her warning points to the second half of the story: sustainability. Artisanal and small‑scale mining (ASM) is a critical livelihood across Africa, but without safeguards it leaves a heavy footprint—unsafe pits, land degradation, polluted waterways, and social harms in boomtowns that rise faster than institutions can cope. In Tigray’s case, local governance is still stabilizing after war. The capacity to enforce environmental standards, track supply chains, and protect miners is playing catch‑up with market incentives that currently reward volume above all else.
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The data problem complicates everything. Industry observers say official supply tallies rely on self‑reporting by sellers and disbursement records by the NBE, both vulnerable to gaming when margins are high. Some allege that bribery and paperwork inflation have crept into the system, lifting headline export numbers in ways that are hard to verify.
The NBE’s method, counting funds disbursed for gold purchasing, price margins and related expenses, can easily be mistaken for physical volume if oversight is weak. The result is a credibility gap: the state needs foreign exchange and touts a spectacular recovery in exports, while technocrats and local officials hedge, noting that the surge may not reflect sustainable output or durable benefits for communities.
Shire’s ascent is a microcosm of an older, continental challenge; Gold and other minerals remain essential to Africa’s fiscal and development ambitions, yet porous borders, uneven enforcement, and conflict economies create arbitrage that outpaces reforms. When a single purchasing node offers better prices and laxer checks, supply will converge there, legitimate and otherwise. Without robust chain‑of‑custody systems, harmonized border controls, and environmental compliance, the excess returns accrue to brokers and smugglers more than to miners, local governments, or ecosystems.
The policy levers are not mysterious; the difficulty lies in sequencing and political will. Ethiopia’s central bank and mines ministry can tighten assay and documentation requirements at the point of purchase; link payments to verified origin and purity; and phase in digital traceability from mine site to branch, with random audits that compare declared loads against assay results. The Shire branch, in particular, needs standardized testing, transparent premium schedules, and independent oversight to restore confidence after the adulteration scare.
On the environmental front, the TIA can couple any restart of artisanal operations with basic safeguards, site licensing tied to reclamation plans, community water testing, safety training, and designated processing zones—so that short‑term revenue does not become long‑term liability.
None of that will stick if the regional dimension is ignored. The alleged Eritrea and Sudan linkages demand cross‑border cooperation on customs, anti‑money‑laundering controls, and intelligence sharing, ideally under AU‑aligned frameworks that support legal trade and penalize diversion without criminalizing livelihoods. Traceability and due‑diligence models already exist in parts of the Great Lakes and West Africa; adapting those lessons to Ethiopia’s northern corridors would help align incentives on both sides of the border.
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For investors and lenders, meanwhile, the signal is mixed: high export receipts suggest opportunity, but opacity and governance risk will keep capital cautious until purchase systems and environmental compliance are visibly strengthened. For communities around Shire, the stakes are more immediate. A gold rush can feel like prosperity, but booms without institutions tend to break the social contract: prices rise, services strain, and the landscape bears scars long after traders have moved on.
Birikti’s appeal to slow down and build sustainability into the system is, in that sense, a call for patience in a political economy that rarely rewards it. If authorities can use the current pause, imposed by disease and uncertainty, to fix purchase rules, formalize miners, and put guardrails around the trade, the next surge could look less like a scramble and more like development.
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Across the continent, countries are trying to turn natural wealth into structural change, fiscal space for schools and clinics, resilient local industries, and green transitions that do not replicate the old extractive paradigm. That requires more than headline export numbers. It requires trust in the data, fairness in the marketplace, and care for the land and people doing the work. Shire’s year of astonishing output has forced those issues into the open. What comes next; cleanup or consolidation, will say a great deal about Ethiopia’s capacity to manage a strategic resource, and about Africa’s readiness to trade its minerals on terms that are transparent, lawful, and sustainable.
