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Improving Mining Tax Administration Frameworks In West Africa

West Africa

Strategies to attract investment to the mining sector in West Africa have resulted in several fold mining revenues increases amongst other in countries like Ghana, Mali, and Burkina. This rapid growth, however, outpaced the capacity of government to adequately control and monitor mining sector activities or to adequately capture relevant and resulted in a demand for more equitable distribution of the benefits from mining activities, as well as for more transparency and accountability in government’s use of mining revenues.

One of the central challenges many West African countries face relates to their capacity to put in place a framework to collect mineral revenues aligned to contractual agreements and in so doing set the stage for a potential use of mineral revenues for sustainable development. An improved revenue-collection framework would entail a clear identification and strengthening of different levels of administrative capacity required to implement various tax instruments, followed with the development and setting up of effective and co-ordinated, physical and financial control systems for the two key institutions managing the mining sector i.e. the Ministries in charge of Finance and Mining.

The objective of CET's assignment is to:

1. Prepare a framework for the strengthening of the mineral tax administration capacity of Governments (Ministry of Mines and Ministry of Finance) in the West African region to ensure compliance with mineral development contracts and fiscal regimes. 2. Develop case studies in three countries (Burkina Faso, Mali and Ghana) mapping the current physical and financial controls for mineral revenue collection, including assessment of capacity and institutional constraints and risks. 3. The development of a “how-to” practical note and related comprehensive survey questionnaire to improve mineral tax compliance to be used initially in an international workshop to be conducted in one of the countries and later for training of the key units in the Ministries of Finance and Mines working on mineral tax collection in various countries.

Project Duration

2011 - 2012

Project Co-ordinator