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By Ira Karen Apanay Senior Reporter
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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