Windhoek: Government is expected to tell the mining industry today whether it will accept their tax proposals, in particular their suggestion of a common super tax on all commodities. Mark Dawe, president of the Chamber of Mines in Namibia, told Reuters at the Africa Mining Indaba in Cape Town yesterday that the industry was confident that Government would do the “right thing”.
Reuters reported that Dawe said the chamber, which would get feedback on its proposals from the government on Friday, was punting for a common super tax on all commodities to prevent an administrative burden on miners.
The chamber succeeded in getting Government to back-pedal on its tax reforms last year, which would have would have seen the profit tax rate of non-mining companies increasing from 37,5 per cent to 44
per cent. Government kept the rate at 37,5 per cent, but introduced a windfall tax on profits. It also clung to a host of other tax reforms. The chamber is also negotiating with Government on behalf of Namdeb to ease the diamond giant’s tax burden. Namdeb is currently subjected to a rate of 55 per cent tax on profits and ten per cent royalty on turnover – an effective rate of more than 75 per cent.
Dawe yesterday told Reuters that although the chamber was confident, “we’re very concerned that they’ve [Government] scared away a number of investors as a result of these pronouncements. A number of companies have left Namibia,” he said, without elaborating.
Namibia is one of the world’s largest producers of diamonds and has huge deposits of uranium, with Rio Tinto and Australian miner Paladin Energy currently producing the key nuclear material. Foreign firms are also exploring for gold, lead, zinc and iron ore.
* Own report and Nampa-Reuters
