By Nicholas Bariyo
KAMPALA Uganda--Zambia is set to start declaring all its mining
revenues publicly at the end of this year, as the push for
transparency in Southern Africa's mining sector continues,
officials said Thursday.
The international board of Norway-based Extractive Industries
Transparency Initiative, or EITI, said in a statement that Zambia
has been declared EITI compliant, becoming the 15th resource-rich
nation in the world to join EITI.
"EITI compliance means that the country has an effective process
for annual disclosure and reconciliation of all revenues from its
extractive sector, allowing citizens to see how much their country
receives from oil, gas and mining companies" EITI said in a
statement.
According to Zambia's Commerce Minister Robert Schinga, EITI
compliance will ensure Zambia and its citizens benefit from the
booming mining sector, through job creation as well as improved
infrastructure from the building of roads, hospitals and
schools.
"We have a track record in the fight against corruption," Mr.
Schinga said.
Zambia is Africa's largest copper producer. In 2009, Zambia is
believed to have collected more than $500 million from its mining
sector, but the majority of the country's citizens remain in abject
poverty.
Since the election of populist president Michael Sata last year,
Zambia has embarked on a number of programs aimed at fighting
corruption and holding foreign mining companies accountable. The
new government has since tightened control on mineral exports and
doubled mineral royalties to 6% in a bid to boost revenues.
EITI Chair and former U.K. International Development Secretary
Clare Short said the initiative would help Zambia address the
challenges of poor governance and mismanagement of its mining
revenues.
"Zambia has not benefited as it should from its plentiful copper
and other mineral resources. This has been partly due to poor
governance and partly due to ungenerous contracts," Ms. Short
said.
The World Bank also welcomed Zambia's move to comply with EITI
and urged the copper producing nation "to build on the latest
achievement" to achieve stronger national consensus on how its
minerals wealth can be used to reduce poverty and improve
development prospects.
In the past few years, Zambia has attracted huge investments it
its copper mining sector and the country's copper output is poised
to hit at least 1.5 million tons by 2015 from around 800,000 tons
produced last year.
Companies such as London-listed Vedanta Resources PLC (VED.LN),
Glencore International AG (GLEN.LN) and Canada's First Quantum
Minerals Ltd. (FM.T) are currently implementing huge expansion
copper projects in the country, worth over $2 billion in total.
Write to Nicholas Bariyo at Nicholas.Bariyo@dowjones.com
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