CAPE TOWN Feb 8 (Reuters) – Burkina Faso plans to
create a social development fund from the government’s tax and
royalty revenue from gold mining, the country’s mines minister
said on Wednesday.
“It would come from the revenue of gold,” Salif Kabore told
Reuters on the sidelines of an industry conference in Cape Town
called the Investing in African Mining Indaba. He said the fund
would go toward “communities and the environment”.
Asked if it meant any changes in taxes and royalties, he
said: “No, not more taxes.”
He declined to give further details.
Burkina Faso is an emerging gold producer in frontier
Africa, but as in much of Africa, mineral wealth there has yet
to translate into wider prosperity, a point underscored last
year when riots broke out over food and fuel price increases.
(Reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and
Jane Baird)
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