Lawmakers to investigate mining sector shortcomings

摘要

In the runup to a scheduled presidential election, Alassane Bala Sakandé plans to deploy a team of parliamentarians to investigate problems with certain obligatory mining levies and to find solutions. Although the Covid-19 crisis might delay Burkina Faso's presidential election scheduled for next November, authorities in Ouagadougou are keen to persuade voters that the government has a good record when it comes to mining, one of the pillars of the economy. With the general public and civil society feeling that the sums the state has raised from a new local mining development fund, or FMDL, and from a separate fund derived from water levies are too small, Alassane Bala Sakandé, the speaker of the National Assembly and a senior member of the ruling party, has decided to take action. He plans to deploy a fact-finding mission by July to identify why the two forms of tax imposed on mining companies are not operating as they should.