By Zambia News Features Correspondent
A Zambian business and political consultant has questioned what is difficult for mining companies to pay windfall tax when copper prices are at their highest.
The consultant, Robert Sichinga in an email in reaction to a recent publication that exposed the alleged tax evasion of Mopani Copper Mines recently, said Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) which was the state-owned mining conglomerate before privatisation in the 1990s, used to pay six per cent mineral royalty tax when copper prices were around US$1700/1800.
“If the mining companies felt that the government would query them, they would dare not do this. ZCCM used to pay six per cent mineral royalty tax when copper prices were around $1700/1800. So what is difficult for mining companies today to pay Windfall Tax when prices are at the highest ever,” Sichinga said in the email.
He charged that this was a case of the MMD government not caring or being concerned, adding, “frankly the argument that investors will leave is as flawed as it is unreasonable.”
He said his view was that people remove the “irresponsible” MMD government and that all advice by people like him had fallen on deaf ears.
“We can’t go on like this indefinitely,” Sichinga concluded.
Meanwhile, Ndola-based NGO has predicted a landslide victory for the ruling MMD government in this year’s general elections because of the developments that have been made across all the nine provinces of the country.
The little-known Copperbelt Welfare and Environmental Protection Association, through its spokesperson, Lastone Muzyamba, said in a statement made available to Zambia News Features that also confident that the MMD party would come out stronger after its national convention scheduled for Kabwe in the next few weeks.
Muzyamba said government had taken development to all parts of Zambia for everyone to see.
“We are perfectly sure that the MMD as a party will emerge stronger from the MMD national convention because of the unity that President Rupiah Banda has instilled in the party. When President Banda says he is a president for all Zambians, it is clearly meaningful because he has proved to be a uniting factor in the party and the country at large,” Muzyamba said.
(Contact us on editor@zambianewsfeatures.com)