This report has been compiled by a group of African and international civil society organisations concerned about the lack of transparency in mining contracts, as well as the revenue that national budgets forego because of excessive mining tax concessionsas well as multinational mining companies avoiding and evading tax. Our analysis, drawn from research conducted in Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Malawi, DRC and South Africa, shows that African governments are foregoing millions of dollars in tax revenue from the mining industry. This is largely because of overly generous tax concessions, usually granted discretionarily in secret mining contracts, as well as tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion practices by multinational mining companies. Fuelling these losses is a lack of transparency and oversight of the financial remittances from mining companies to government institutions, coupled with the inability of government institutionsto audit the complicated accounts of multinational mining companies. Breaking The Curse
