Uganda to debate draft mining law enabling Govt to take 15% in private mining ventures, page-21

Some things to ponder on the hoohaa surrounding the proposed 15%...

Tanzania imposes 16% ( case by case ) and Uganda is thinking us to,,especially after the massive oil deal a week ago which was a three way , TOTAL, CNOOC and Ugandan govt, however id say that the 15% wont apply there because Uganda already has a sizeable %

In Tanzania the recent Kibara Nickel project won by a UK company,,edgeing out Barack, the 16% will be applied.Develpoment cost in region U$650m.

Now the situatuon is fluid in my opinion in a number of ways in Tanzania, which Uganda seems to be copying, in that the previous Tanzanian president passedaway a couple of weeks ago and already the new President is rolling back some of his hardlone policys. President Samia of Tanzania, has said 'we dont want to have a situation where we are flexing our muscles... we want to encourage foreign investment.... there is some TAx issue with BArack and iVe asked my finance dept to sort it out swiftly...etc

So Tanzania is very pro foreign investment and the 16% may be rolled back or offset with other a tax holiday in some form or other to keep the peace. Just my opinion here as to what could occur.

So Uganda is out of sync with the new direction that Tanzania, the biggest miner in East African region by a big margin, is heading.

We must remeber that Chinalco spent 12 months on due diligence leading up to the MOU with IXR last week and that included Uganda's political/economic business climate (see the announcement)

I dont think these rules set by these african countries are set in stone ,,and if they do the 15-16% ,,they will give back via tax concessions ,, and save face tand still look tough and looking out in the interests of their country. 'Yes Minister' stuff