By Julian Owusu-Abedi
Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited (SMGHL) has been caught up in the web of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) for tax evasion running into several millions of dollars.
Records from Shaanxi’s own GRA returns lodged at the Tax office at Kinbu in Accra indicate that since they started operations in 2008 they have never paid any taxes to government from their gold exports until 2013 to 2017.
Soon as this investigative journalist started publishing series of stories about their dealings in July 2018, including how Shaanxi has already raked in an estimated $317,002,556, then they started paying ‘some form’ of tax from August 2018.
By law, it is required of Shaanxi to report quantities of gold won and sold not later than the 15th day of every month to the Minerals Commission(MinComm) but the figures they have given the Commission so far in the years under review contradicts the quantity of gold won and exported, according to Shaanxi’s own records of export at the Precious Minerals Marketing Company(PMMC), as well as gold sold to private companies like AA Minerals Limited, Smagow Resources Ghana Limited and RG Resources Ghana Limited.
So far, Minerals Commission was able to show record of sales value of gold exported by Shaanxi from 2014-2017 to be $12,259,353(equivalent of Gh¢20,422,325…that is if even the dollar was five Ghana cedis then) whiles their total export records from PMMC between 2014-2016 alone was Gh¢107,069,580, which clearly suggest that the statutory body(MinComm) charged with oversight responsibility may have gone to sleep or turned a blind eye on the Chinese operations for whatever considerations or motivation.
Aside what Shaanxi exported through PMMC as against what they reported to the MinComm, between 11th September 2018 to 20th November 2018(within two months) alone, Shaanxi sold gold to the tune of Gh¢2,576,277 to RG Resources and a total of Gh¢12,911,126 to AA Minerals too between 6th December2017 to 9th July 2018, while Smagow Resources also bought Gh¢7,772,778 worth of gold from Shaanxi, per the Chinese’ own records.
In total, Shaanxi sold gold worth GH¢23,260,181 to the three companies aforementioned apart from the GH¢107,069,580 worth of gold they exported through PMMC but yet they reported only GH¢20,422,325($12,259,353) value of gold won, sold or exported.
On the other hand, there are also allegations of the fact that there were number of times helicopter was seen flying from Shaanxi’s site into Burkina Faso carrying load suspected to be gold. However, what can be substantiated is that Shaanxi’s Director Mr. Lee was busted at the airport in 2015 with gold nuggets but was bailed out by the current Deputy Attorney General Hon. Kpemka who was their lawyer then. When the Deputy Attorney General was quizzed by this reporter about whether they bribed the airport officials to set Mr. Lee free or not he simply said; “we talked our way out”
Stay tuned for more on how Shaanxi’s illegal operations led to the deaths of 31 people in the Upper East and ‘How Peter John Amewu lied to Randy Abbey to Protect Shaanxi’
