In July 2021, Gemfields – the main shareholder in Montepuez Ruby Mining in Mozambique and Kagem in Zambia – announced the “G Factor for Natural Resources”, a measure that aims to promote greater transparency about the level of natural resource wealth shared with governments.
According to an article made public this Wednesday, 24 April, by the Mining Weekly news portal, the mining company announced the updated figures for the measure for the year 2023, inviting extractive companies, industry observers and governments to adopt the “G Factor for Natural Resources” to improve the transparency and accountability of companies.
Reporting on the measure’s calculations for its two main mining subsidiaries, namely the Kagem emerald mine in Zambia and the Montepuez ruby mine in Mozambique, Gemfields notes that it provides a simple indicator of the percentage of revenues that are paid to governments in primary and direct taxes. “This is also an indicator of the efficiency of natural resource companies in converting them into funds for the governments of the countries in which they operate,” writes the website quoting the mining company’s press release.
During the same period, MRM collected revenues of 151.3 million dollars (9.5 billion meticais) and Zambia collected 92.7 million dollars (5.8 billion meticais)
“The ‘G Factor for Natural Resources’ provides a simple school score that allows observers to assess the efficiency of extractive companies in converting natural resources into wealth for the nations in which they operate,” explained Sean Gilbertson, CEO of Gemfields. “In order to better align ourselves with the practices of other countries in our region, this year we added export duties and taxes as an additional parameter in the calculation.”
He also pointed out that he hopes “the ‘G Factor’ will be voluntarily adopted by other companies and governments and incorporated into projects such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative [EITI – an international initiative launched with the aim of improving the degree of transparency and accountability in the extractive sector]”.
