Two former finance ministers calls for the introduction of windfall tax

Two Zambia’s former finance ministers have asked government to reconsider the windfall tax waiver to enable the nation generate revenue to accelerate development and meet social obligations given the increased copper price on international metal market.
Mr Ngandu Magande the immediate former minister of finance said that it is scandalous that the mining sector in Zambia is contributing less than 10% to the gross revenue collections because the government was doing so out of respite.

He regretted that his successor Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane was resisting the re-introduction of windfall tax because it was introduced by people he did not like.

He observed that with the current variable tax many companies would manage to evade tax because the revenue authority did not have a mechanism for auditing the profit and loss accounts for the investors.
He claimed that Dr Musokotwane was confusing himself by adducing that windfall tax was not acceptable in the current government when he had introduced the same tax to the telecommunication sector.
and Ms Edith Nawakwi former finance minister now leaders of opposition Forum for Democracy and Development said that the government should stop making Zambians finance the copper mining sector through failure to implement the windfall tax on mining houses.
Ms Nawakwi said that ordinary Zambians were subsidizing the copper mining sector through the high exchange rates prevailing in the country.

She expressed disappointment that learned officials were supporting the government’s stance on the windfall tax and were failing to acknowledge the benefits that the implementation of the windfall tax would have on the growth of the national economy.
She added that Zambia was bound to lose out on the attractive copper prices on the international commodities market if the government insisted on not effecting windfall tax on mining houses.

She appealed to the government to take a leaf from Chile, which was able to realize about USD 12 billion from its mining activities because of policies that ensured that the country benefits from the sector.
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