ASTONISHINGLY HIGH TAX BILL

The Buzwagi mine of Pangea Minerals in Tanzania, shown above, has been hit, along with its Bulyanhulu stablemate, by an astonishingly high adjusted tax assessments of $190-billion in alleged unpaid taxes, penalties and interest owed. The tax blow followed Tanzania’s earlier ban on the export of metal-in-concentrate exports from Buzwagi and Bulyanhulu, which are subsidiaries of Acacia Mining, a Barrick Gold group company. Additionally, a senior Pangea employee had his passport temporarily confiscated at the Dar-es-Salaam airport, before legal intervention resulted in its return. Acacia is locked in a bitter dispute with the Tanzanian government over alleged under-declaring of the value of concentrate being shipped to smelters.