Gold mining companies in Ivory Coast have begun paying a new 8% royalty on revenue, backdated to January, after months of disputing the legality of the levy, three industry sources told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Reuters previously reported that the world’s top cocoa producer, which is\u00a0seeking to diversify\u00a0its economy, replaced the previous 3% to 6% range linked to contract terms with the flat 8% rate.<\/p>\n
Miners initially refused to pay, arguing that the move was unlawful because their contracts shielded them from fiscal changes and entered negotiations with the government to have the new royalty scrapped.<\/p>\n
However, companies have since started paying after the government refused to change its position, said the three people familiar with the matter, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has now agreed to pay \u2013 the question is whether penalties apply,\u201d said one executive, adding that firms were rushing to settle to avoid fines.<\/p>\n
Ivory Coast\u2019s mines chamber and its mines and finance ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
David Whittle, West Africa chief operating officer at Fortuna Mining, confirmed compliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve made our payments of 8%, backdated from when it was introduced. We didn\u2019t see negotiations heading anywhere,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The gold price has taken care of it,\u201d Whittle said, referring to its roughly 65% rally this year.<\/p>\n
Key mining companies in Ivory Coast include Perseus Mining, Endeavour Mining, Fortuna, Allied Gold and newcomers like Montage Gold.<\/p>\n
As gold and other commodity prices surge, West African states have been\u00a0increasing fiscal pressure\u00a0on miners,\u00a0straining relations with operators, who warn the measures could curb investment.<\/p>\n
While military-led\u00a0Guinea,\u00a0Mali,\u00a0Niger\u00a0and\u00a0Burkina Faso\u00a0are taking direct steps, such as revoking licenses or seizing assets, to extract concessions from operators, other countries such as Ghana and the Ivory Coast have been introducing new laws and levies to boost state revenues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gold mining companies in Ivory Coast have begun paying a new 8% royalty on revenue, backdated to January, after months of disputing the legality of the levy, three industry sources told Reuters. Reuters previously reported that the world’s top cocoa producer, which is\u00a0seeking to diversify\u00a0its economy, replaced the previous 3% to 6% range linked to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,3028,27],"tags":[4084,407],"class_list":["post-18922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-mining","category-west-africa","tag-gold-mining","tag-ivory-coast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18924,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18922\/revisions\/18924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}