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First Quantum Minerals (FQM), paid ZMW 20.4 billion in taxes and royalties independently audited Zambia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (ZEITI) 2021 annual report on tax payments and receipts
The sum amounts to 61 percent of the total amount – nearly ZMW 34 billion – received by the government from the entire mining industry that year.
ZEITI is the national chapter of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the global standard for the good governance of oil, gas and mineral resources. ZEITI is an independent body, unconnected to either Government or industry, that publishes an annual report, publicly available through their website, documenting all payments made by mining companies, and revenues received by the Government (for example, mining taxes, royalties, licences, permits etc).
Importantly, the EITI conducts a reconciliation between the amounts paid by companies and the amounts received by government entities, so that any discrepancy can be revealed. Zambia joined the EITI in 2009, and annual reconciliation reports have been available to the public since 2008.
Despite a decline in Zambian copper production in 2021, surging copper prices led to a significant increase in government revenue from the mining sector. The two most notable increases were recorded for mineral royalties and company income tax. Mineral royalty receipts from the industry increased from ZMW 5.2 billion to ZMW 12.7 billion, mirroring the increased receipts in income tax from ZMW 5.1 billion to 12.7 billion. Royalties are charged as a percentage of sales, escalating as the price of copper increases.
The substantial increase in income tax, which is levied on a company’s profits, signifies that both investors and the State did well in 2021, which was just recompense for the great uncertainties that COVID-19 introduced in 2020.
Meanwhile First Quantum had already disclosed these contributions in May 2022, through its annual ‘Tax Transparency and Contributions to Government’ Report.
FQM Country Manager Dr Godwin Beene said the mining company prided itself on the significant contribution it had made to the nation’s finances during the year and reiterated the importance of transparency initiatives like ZEITI in educating public debate.
“Due to our economic dependence on mining, we tend to have a very emotive public debate on mining’s fiscal contribution to the country. Often, the facts are obscured by the politicisation of reporting on the mining sector which can lead to misleading or often inaccurate reporting of data. The great utility of ZEITI’s annual reports is that they are an independently verified set of facts that gives the public a transparent view of mining taxation – both what has been paid on the one side, and received on the other – and provides reassurance that the nation is recouping a very substantial return from the mining of its national resources.”
