Extractive Industries 2020: Mozambique collects about 16 billion meticais (US$250.6M) in tax revenues

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Extractive Industries 2020: Mozambique collects about 16 billion meticais (US$250.6M) in tax revenues

3:32 CAT | 16 Sep 2022

Image: Notícias

The Mozambican State has collected close to 16 billion meticais (about 250.6 million US dollars at current exchange rate) in tax revenues from Extractive Industries in 2020.

These are the figures announced in Maputo this Thursday (15) during the launch of the 10th Independent Report of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) for the year 2020.

“The State collected 213,500.2 million meticais in tax revenues, of which 15,944.18 million, corresponding to 07 percent, are reported as revenues from extractive industries,” said consultant Ismael Faquir, EITI representative.

Faquir said the contribution of extractive industries to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell one percentage point, from 7.9 per cent in 2019 to 6.9 in 2020.

He also said that in the survey conducted for EITI “33 companies were selected for the process of reconciliation of tax payments made by them, of which 22 are from the mining sector and 11 from the hydrocarbon sector.”

As for compliance concerning payment of taxes, the research points out that 92 per cent of tax revenues from the extractive industry were reconciled.

“The differences found between company payments and State receipts correspond to 0.07 percent of the amount confirmed in 2020,” declared Faquir.

He added that in 2020, there were 2,051 active mining titles, subdivided into 810 prospecting and research licences, 311 mining concessions, 538 mining certificates and 392 trading licences.

“Also in this survey we found that 12 concession contracts were still active in the hydrocarbons sector, two in the production phase, two in the development phase, six in the research phase and two for gas transport,” Faquir said.

Mineral Resources and Energy minister, Carlos Zacarias, who also attended the event, said that by joining the EITI Mozambique improved considerably its mechanisms for monitoring hydrocarbon exploration, as well as broadened its knowledge on tax collection for the sector.

“With this initiative we have strengthened the monitoring approach, as well as adopting various supervisory steps in place in several countries,” said the minister who chairs the EITI Coordination Committee.

“With this initiative there was also expanded our legal instruments. With the collection of revenues, we also contribute to the stabilisation of the economy,” said Zacarias.

He praised cooperation between the government and civil society in the field of natural resources exploration which has strengthened over the last few years.

EITI is a global programme that aims to promote transparent and responsible management of natural resources.

The initiative was officially launched in 2002 at the summit of Heads of State and Government held in South Africa. Mozambique joined the initiative in 2009, having already produced 10 reports.

Source: AIM