The Administrative Court of Mozambique considers that “divergences” persist between the values of the tax contribution from the extractive industry declared by the Tax Authority (AT) and those in the General State Account (CGE) prepared by the executive.
“As in previous years, divergences prevail between the values recorded in the CGE and those reported by the Tax Authority,” says the court in its report and opinion on the 2019 CGE being debated today and Thursday in the Portuguese Parliament (AR).
The discrepancy “affects the reliability” of the amount of revenue declared by the megaprojects in the 2019 CGE, the Mozambican state auditor adds.
On the other hand, the TA continues, the difference in numbers in the tax revenues of the extractive sector hurts the principles of “clarity, accuracy and simplicity,” making “the economic and financial analysis” of the declaration of “taxes paid by companies framed in the oil, gas and coal sectors” difficult.
In the table on “the degree of compliance with the recommendations,” the TA considers as “not complied with” the recommendation it sent to the government to follow the principles of “clarity, accuracy, and simplicity” in the statement of tax accounts of companies in the extractive sector.
In the Opinion and Report on the 2019 CGE, the TA notes that the 10 companies in the gas, oil, power and coal sector paid that year in taxes just over 19.7 billion meticais (232.6 million euros), equivalent to 7.2% of the total revenues that the state collected that year.
The amount that the said companies disbursed in 2019 translates to an increase of 5.3 billion meticais (62.5 million euros) compared to 2018.
The CGE submitted to parliament by the Mozambican executive points out that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 2.2% in 2019.
State revenues reached about 270 billion meticais (3.2 billion euros) and expenses exceeded just over 340.4 billion meticais (about four billion euros).
