Zambia Congress of Trade Union – ZCTU has observed that some mining firms in the country are in a habit of dodging from paying tax as expected, hence causing illicit financial flows to and from the Zambian economy.
ZCTU Deputy Director for Research Muleka Kamanisha told Zambian Business Times – ZBT in April 2019 in an exclusive interview that the Union mother body is saddened with reports from the public indicating that the country is losing huge amount of revenue from some mining companies through tax manipulation.
Mulekwa attributed to a recent report by Zambia Revenue Authority – ZRA stating that a single mine from North western province was owing government US$ 7.8 billion as evidence hence the need for government to quickly attend to this matter.
He said some projects being undertaken by the mining firms are ways of dodging from paying tax as most of them are not centered to help people from sounding areas or improve productivity of the mines.
He added that the money being spent on the social corporate responsibility programmes should not be an excuse to deprive government of tax revenues as it is every company’s responsibility. They are using most of their corporate social responsibility budgets without clear outlines, hence end up acting like they have spent more and pay less to government.
He said it is impossible for a mining company to extract copper without a buy-product such as cobalt and this should be a concern for government to track down records of cobalt as it is a high value product.
“When you look at the price of cobalt on the world market, it is ten times more than copper, copper is currently in the range of US$6,000 per tonne while cobalt is over US$50,000 per tonne, so there is a concern as to whether these mines are really giving us correct records of what is being extracted or we are being mislead,” he said.
Kamanisha has however called on government to create a mechanism of monitoring how much copper is exported from the mines as a way of holding them accountable as this will lessen the linkages in tax revenue. He further asked Zambians working in these mines to act as whistle blowers and practice patriotism by monitoring what surrounds them.
