Illegal Mining Deprives the Treasury of Revenue-Dr. Lubinda Habazooka

Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba writes;

Illegal Mining Deprives the Treasury of Revenue-Dr. Lubinda Habazooka

My View

Dr. Lubinda Habazooka has condemned illegal miners stating that their activities deprive the Treasury of income in taxes.

I wish he could express similar outrage to a government that gives mine houses tax holidays, tax exemption and especially a government that allows export of copper as ore or as concentrates – duty free.

Exporting copper ore and copper concentrates ( in this case even without export duty) when the country has sufficient processing and smelting caoacity is deliberate theft of fair taxes as products such as gold, silver, and cobalt may not be visible at this strage.

It’s also part of a sophisticated mechanism to distort quarterly and annual eligible income available for taxes.

You expect people like Dr. Habazooka to spend time exposing such tax dodging, and such tax cheating mechanisms so that government can be compelled to act fairly.

Further, in the recent, the armed forces gave been unfairly used to enforce private interests such as we saw in Mumbwa area where the Zambia Airforce was involved in destroying camps of illegal gold miners while accompanied by an investor who claimed he had mineral exploration licence.

following the geo-mapping of the country, the study has revealed where nineral deposits are, and this new assignment is to prepare and empty lands for big businesses interested in exploiting rhe resource especially in light of the prevalent high prices of copper, cobalt and other critical minerals.

I also wish that he could spend time to propose solutions that would help illegal mining to be regularised and monitored especially that it attracts desperate youths who remain unemployed and have little or no support from the State but infact show determination, resilience, sacrifice and hard work in creating self economic opportunities for themselves, instead of affirming brutal methods against our own people.