Friday, April 19, 2024

Councils challenged to prudently use royalties from mines

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Mopani Mines
Zambia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (ZEITI) has urged local authorities to disclose revenues collected from mining companies in order to foster accountability with the communities.

ZANIS reports that ZEITI National Secretariat Coordinator Siforiano Banda disclosed that for the fiscal year ended December 2015, Solwezi municipal council had received K25, 985,900 from Kansanshi mining plc and Lumwana Company limited as revealed in the EITI report.

Mr. Banda urged communities to make use of the EITI reports in order to benefit from money paid to the councils by mining companies.

He said this at the launch of the eighth Zambia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (ZEITI) reconciliation report in Solwezi yesterday.

Mr. Banda said the eighth EITI report will help bring about accountability in how councils spend revenues collected from the mining sector.

And Northwestern provincial Permanent Secretary Ephraim Mateyo said government is concerned with the high number of unlicensed small scale mining companies operating illegally in the province.

Mr. Mateyo said government will undertake an audit of all small-scale mining companies to ensure that mining activities were carried out within the laws and that companies were contributing to the national treasury through tax obligations.

Mr. Mateyo disclosed that the recently launched seventh national development plan underscores the importance of the mining sector to the development of Zambia when revenues from mines are prudently managed.

He implored all unlicensed small-scale mining companies operating in rural areas to formalize their operations with the ministry of mines.

3 COMMENTS

  1. LT try to use English Editors for your posts.
    The heading should be:
    ‘Councils urged (or advised) to use royalties from mines prudently.’
    There is no call to do a difficult or impossible task here.

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