Gov’t told to settle $20m owed mining firms

The Ghana Chamber of Mines is appealing to government to settle about 20 million dollars VAT refund to some mining companies since 2010.

It is hoping the request will be included in the 2014 budget.

Chief Executive Officer, Tony Aubyn explained to XYZ BUSINESS that failure on the part of government to pay the monies will worsen the cost of doing business of mining companies.

According to him, this year has been a challenging one due to gold price behavior and high cost of operations.

“We made request for things like VAT refund you know when you paid VAT on things that you are not supposed to pay but because of the way the system is you have to pay upfront. The arrangement is VAT is to be refunded by government.”

He added “We have been talking with government to see how we can arrange this some of our members are owed about 20 million dollars for 3 years or things like that so I think is the challenge that we raised that government was unable to address. I believe government is seriously looking at that now.”

Dr. Auybn however commended government for not implementing the Windfall Profit Tax in the 2013 budget.

He urged government to reconsider the implementation of the tax in its future plans.