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

The Ghana Chamber of Mines has appealed to government to settle about US$20million Value Added Tax (VAT) refund owed to some mining companies since 2010.

Chief Executive Officer Dr. Toni Aubynn explained that failure on the part of government to pay the monies will worsen the cost of doing business for mining companies, and put them in dire straits.

Dr. Aubynn observed that this year has been a challenging one due to gold price volatility 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.”

“We have been talking with government to see how we can arrange this; some of our members have been owed about 20 million dollars for three years. I think this is the challenge that we have raised, and government has not addressed it.

“I believe government is seriously looking at this now, and we hope our request will be included in the 2014 budget,” he said.

Dr. Auybnn lauded government for not implementing the Windfall Profit Tax in the 2013 budget.