Maravi

Sichinga accuses mines of funding MMD

Sichinga accuses mines of funding MMD
By Patson Chilemba
Tue 07 June 2011, 04:01 CAT

RUPIAH Banda’s government is highly irresponsible and has betrayed the Zambian people, says economic consultant Robert Sichinga.

Reacting to President Banda’s claims that the government was getting money from the capital markets to undertake developments such as the K300 billion Lusaka urban road rehabilitation, Sichinga said government was not getting money from the capital markets, but had entered into a secret agreement with some mining companies to fund MMD campaigns.

He said this was a betrayal of the Zambian people who had been demanding that mines make a meaningful contribution to the national treasury, through the introduction of the windfall tax.

“My information is as follows; this money is not coming from the capital market. This money has come from the mines, who they have refused to tax. And this is the deal between the government and the mines that they will pay to MMD some money which they can then use for their campaign, with a view of them being retained in government,” Sichinga said.

“Because if the mines should not support the MMD and allow a new government to come in, a new government is likely to tax the mines with proper taxes, on mineral royalty taxes as well as windfall tax, as well as income tax.”

Sichinga said the mines had been put in a position where they were afraid of change of government; therefore they were supplying President Banda’s government with money to do the roads.

“There is also a separate deal which they have done to give money to MMD to enable them campaign. That’s why MMD is flashing this money all over the place. It has come from the mines,” Sichinga said.

“Now for every double entry there is a debit and a credit, so whatever the government is doing at the moment it will come to light because the government account will have to disclose where this money is coming from.”

Sichinga said President Banda’s government had refused calls from the Zambian people to reintroduce a fair regime on the mines because they wanted to hold the mines to ransom so they could support the MMD.

“Why not make the mines just pay a fair tax? This is betrayal and this is why I have said ‘let the people decide in this election and make the issue of the mine taxes as an issue in this campaign’,” Sichinga said.

“It should be an issue that this government on the one hand it has refused to tax the mines appropriately so that they can have the money…so this is a great betrayal of the cry of the people.”

Sichinga said finance minister Situmbeko Musokotwane was consistently saying that the mines paid more taxes without disclosing how much money they contributed.

He said the Yellow Book showed that the mines contributed just a paltry figure.

“As though that was not enough, they have relinquished the holding they had in Lumwana, that ZCCM Investment Holdings had in Lumwana. What does this mean?

This is a totally irresponsible government that can’t even want to have any stake in its major source of revenue. In comparison to Botswana, Botswana has a 50-50 arrangement in the diamonds because they know that is their major source of income,” Sichinga said.

He said President Banda’s government was doing all this because they had hidden personal benefits in the mines.

“That is why they are using these particular armpit tactics,” Sichinga said.

He said President Banda’s action to take money from some projects and channel the funds to other programmes should only be done with the approval of Parliament.

Sichinga said the action reflected government’s ineptness and failure to plan and respect the national budget.

“Now what happens to those projects from which money has been taken?” he asked.

Sichinga said if government was getting money from the capital markets, as President Banda claimed, treasury bills and bonds through the Bank of Zambia would have been advertised, which was not the case in this matter.

Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS, CORRUPTION, ROBERT SICHINGA, RUPIAH BANDA, WINDFALL TAX

posted by MrK @ 2:07 AM