Friday, May 16, 2008 [ manilatimes.net ]
By Ira Karen Apanay Senior Reporter
Atienza says Oceana should proceed with development of the site
THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) defended the Australian mining firm Oceana Gold Phils. for using the materials they have obtained from the clearing operations as legal under the financial or technical assistance agreement (FTAA) issued by the government. DENR Secretary Lito Atienza explained that the mining firm can use the materials from the clearing operations for building structures in the site because such activity is part of the “privilege and requirement” of the mining firm under its FTAA issued by the government.
Nueva Viscaya Gov. Luisa Lloren Cuaresma with other provincial officials and villagers on May 7 set up a barricade preventing Oceana Gold from continuing its development of the area and accused the firm of not paying proper taxes.
The local government is asking Oceana Gold to pay quarrying tax because they are getting some of their materials for construction in the clearing area.
However, Atienza said, the provincial government should not collect quarry tax from Oceana Gold because the firm is not into the business of quarrying. He added that Oceana Gold could use the materials from clearing operations as long as they don’t sell them.
“There’s nothing wrong with using the materials. More than a privilege, the construction of roads and processing plants is a requirement because they need to do it as part of the development of mines,” he said.
At the same time, Atienza told Oceana Gold to proceed with their operations despite continued protest from the provincial government of Nueva Vizcaya.
“They can barricade all they want. As for Oceana, they should proceed with the physical development of the site.” Atienza said.
FTAA is a form of a mining contract between the government and a mining company on large-scale exploration and development of minerals, which adopts a single benefit-sharing scheme where the government, as representative of the community, and the mining contractor share 50-50 from the net mining revenues after the recovery of the capital investment by the contractor.
Oceana Gold has initially committed an investment of $180 million for the project.
The mining project is located along the boundaries between Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino provinces, covering 21,465 hectares. The mining firm projected to generate some P30 billion in taxes for both the national and local governments for the whole 15-year period of operations as well as millions of pesos in local taxes and thousands of jobs for the host communities.
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