Zambia Investigates Glencore Unit's Accountants on `Flawed' Tax Submission

The Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants may punish the accountants of Mopani Copper Mines Plc, a unit of Glencore International AG, if they were complicit in “flawed” tax submissions.
“We need maximum cooperation from the company and if those interviewed are found wanting, necessary punitive measures shall be imposed,” Chintu Mulendema, president of the association, known as Zica, said by phone on Feb. 26 from Lusaka, the capital. Their practising licenses could be suspended, he said.
There may have been “irregularities” in the company’s tax submissions for the 2008 fiscal year, Wisdom Nekairo, the director general of the Zambia Revenue Authority, said on Feb. 13. The southern African nation, Africa’s largest copper producer, hired Grant Thornton Zambia and Econ Poyry, a Norwegian consulting and engineering company, in February 2009 to audit mining companies operating in the country Nekairo said. They produced a preliminary report in November.
Emmanuel Mutati, Mopani’s chief executive officer, didn’t answer calls or respond to messages on his mobile phone when Bloomberg News called for comment. The findings in the report are preliminary and the report is “flawed,” Mopani said in a statement in the state-owned Times of Zambia on Feb. 25.
Zambia plans to produce about 2 million tons of copper by 2015, according to Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane. The southern African country earns about 70 percent of its foreign currency from copper exports, according to the Central Bank of Zambia.
To contact the reporter on this story: Anthony Mukwita in Lusaka at amukwita1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net