FDD welcomes dialogue on mining tax

The Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) has welcomed the directive by President Edgar Lungu for the Zambia Revenue Authority to dialogue with the Mines on disputed new mineral royalty tax.

FDD Spokesperson Antonio Mwanza in a statement says the directive by the Head of State to ZRA is the correct decision.

Mr Mwanza says the FDD has continuously called for dialogue on the newly introduced mineral royalty tax.

He says there is need to harmonise the tax code in line with the prevailing operational conditions of the various mines.

Mr Mwanza adds that it is important for the country to resolve this impasse in an amicable manner in order to secure jobs and future investments.

He states that the single tier tax system might not be the ideal one for all the mines because of their varying operational costs, development stages and quality of minerals produced.

Mr Mwanza says going forward, the FDD strongly feels that in order to maximize revenue from the mining industry, a lot of things have to change.

He says the country cannot just be relying on taxes, noting the tax evasion, price transferring and fraud going on the mining sector largely due to lack of capacity at ZRA to deal with these issues.