Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
ActionAid Country Director Nalucha Ziba
ActionAid Zambia has welcomed plans by the Zambia Revenue Authority to undertake forensic audits of large mining companies to establish whether or not they have been complying with the various tax legislations administered by the authority.
Recently, Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) assistant director Clement Kapalu disclosed that Zambia is losing US$3 billion annually due to illicit financial flows mainly perpetrated in the minerals sub-sector, where tax evasion malpractices such as transfer pricing, over and under-invoicing and trade mispricing is rampant.
This prompted the authority to plan in carrying out the forensic audit of large mining companies.
The organisation is however urging the government to make public their audit findings on these mining companies so that the various stakeholders can have a say on them.
ActionAid Country Director Nalucha Ziba has explained to QTV News that the authority undertook such as similar exercise in 2014 and never shared their findings with the general public.
Ms Ziba has however urged the authority to see to it that the exercise is done in a transparent manner it.
Ms Ziba furthermore explains that the forensic audit should have several consultants because the area is very complex so as to have broad results.