The Sunday Mail
Levi Mukarati and Tinashe Farawo
Government is tightening mining revenue monitoring regulations by establishing a special account to consolidate income from companies extracting minerals in the country, a Cabinet minister has said. The account, to be controlled at the highest revenue collection level by Zimra, is envisaged to improve accountability and transparency on income accruing from minerals.
The development, which is in line with the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset), is understood to be a significant step towards securitising the country’s minerals to fund infrastructure projects.
Securitisation is the creation and issuance of tradable securities, such as bonds, which are backed by value of an asset or other solid revenue sources.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa said the paper work was almost complete to pave way for opening of the account, to be administered by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority. Revenue such as mining royalties, licence fees, marketing fees, taxes and dividends will be deposited into the account.
Investigations show that Zimra, the Mines Ministry, Fidelity Printers and Refiners and the Zimbabwe Mining Development Company are collecting various types of revenues from mining companies for onward submission to Treasury.
Experts say the current revenue collection system poses a challenge to ascertaining the true income from mining because several players are handling the money.
Finance and Economic Planning Minister Patrick Chinamasa told The Sunday Mail that the new account would put to rest misconceptions on how much the country was deriving from mining.
“We have heard a lot of conflicting statements on how much the mining sector is contributing towards the fiscus. The opening of the account will put this issue to rest,” he said.
“The opening of the account will not only improve transparency and accountability, it will also improve our revenue collection and use,” he said.
The creation of the account comes at a time suspicions of manipulation are high in the sector.
There have been allegations of undervaluing minerals, under-reporting output and sales, and transfer pricing in the diamond and platinum sectors, while there is a strong belief that huge amounts of gold are ending up in South Africa instead of going to the official buyer Fidelity Printers and Refiners.
Minister Chidhakwa said the imminent opening of the mining account would bring sanity to accounting for mineral revenue.
“We are working together with the Minister of Finance. We will know how much our mining sector is contributing to the fiscus,” he said.
“We want that information as a matter of urgency, everyone wants to know; I want to know, the President wants to know. In fact the whole country wants to know.”
