GROUND Focus Group chief executive officer Jimmy Mubashi says the planned job cuts by mining companies, ostensibly to offset costs in view of new tax reforms enshrined in the 2019 budget, are very regrettable and cannot be justified.

Mubashi said with all intent and purposes, the government must be on firm ground not “to give in to the insatiable appetite by not entertaining the unbridled call by comprador bourgeoisie that the ministry must revert to Value Added Tax (VAT) and not Sales Tax come April 2019.”

He said it would be a travesty to bend to the wishes of transnational entities whose aim was to deny Zambians from benefiting from their richly endowed natural resources.

In a statement, Mubashi said the argument by the mines lack coherent depth of honesty as reasons advanced for their intended action defy logic.

“The planned job cuts by mining companies, ostensibly to offset costs in view of new tax reforms enshrined in the 2019 budget, are very regrettable and cannot be justified,” Mabushi said. “I find myself endorsing the plea which has been advanced from both President Edgar Lungu, the Ministry of Mines and many other stakeholders in vehemently objecting to the transnational companies’ shenanigan to render our colleagues jobless with impunity. We also want to advise their comprador bourgeoisie that their argument lack coherent depth of honesty as reasons advanced for their intended action defy logic.”

He said the reasons advanced by the investors in the mines lacked sincerity and merit.

“We are alive to the fact that any government worth its salt, do extensive research and consultation before coming up with change of laws to suite the majority. We know that Australia and Canada where some of these entities come from pay the same tax they are opposing here. The question we must ask is why? The Zambian people elected government leaders to make sound decisions on their behalf and allowing transnational companies to do as they deem fit will be a total betrayal to the majority voters who vested their trust in their leaders,” Mubashi said.

He said the government should not fall prey to comprador bourgeoisie analysis of what would happen when the new tax regime is implemented as their argument lacked merit.

“It is clear from their argument that theirs is ‘voodoo economics’ being practiced which is aimed at winning favours from their masters at the expense of the majority Zambians,” Mubashi said.
“We salute President Lungu for taking a firm stance on this matter including many other commentators and senior government officials for taking pragmatic steps to better the lives of many Zambians in the face of threats from the enemy of development who might interpolate our civility to be gullible,” he said. “Our leaders must remain steadfast and proactive. The government’s role is strictly to save the interests of the people that placed their authority to run the affairs of the nation on their behalf. We, therefore, oppose such unilateral decisions by the investors and we urge them to embrace dialogue over such sensitive matters. The propaganda being championed by the enemy of development accusing the government of selling strategic institutions to China has been championed by comprador bourgeoise whose interests contrast that of the government goal.”

Mubashi said it would be a travesty to bend to the wishes of transnational entities.

” All tax computation is for the development of this sovereign state and all participants must comply with the host country’s laws and avoid colonial partisan goals aimed at undermining the good intentions of the government,” said Mabushi. “The mission of the government here is strictly to protect the interests of Zambians, and such cannot be ignored. The government must not be humiliated by arm-twisting the authority at the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Mines into bowing to the wishes of these mines that have no history of running any government on planet earth. Territorial integrity will seriously be undermined if the government is not firm in response to the eminent danger that these mining firms and their comprador bourgeoisie pose to this country.”