Tiza Joseph Nyirenda

Zambia's Story of Unbridled Capitalism and Lost Revenues Tiza Joseph Nyirenda

Zambia is blessed with abundant natural resources. However, International NGOs and Academics have raised concern that Zambia may be losing close to US$3 billion every year due to tax avoidance and evasion by Multinational corporations, citing the mining companies to be the biggest culprit. War-On-Want, an international organization that fights against the root causes of poverty and human rights violation globally released a report which revealed that in 2012, the amount of taxes avoided by mining companies every year amounts to US$2 billion which represents 10% of Zambia GDP. Tax avoidance of this nature could be the reason why Zambia's abundant mineral resources have not significantly contributed to the long-term economic and social development agenda. In this book Nyirenda argues that Zambia need a new model of state intervention in the mining sector to curtail tax avoidance and retain the revenues. As a country, we need to craft policies and registration for utilizing our natural resources sustainably and sharing them more equitably. We need to understand that these resources are slowly finishing. Zambia shall outlive us all therefore, our fight then, is to ensure that we bequeath our nation to the coming generation as a going concern, and not a bankrupt entity.