The National Council recommends the government to establish a state mining corporation under Druk Holding and Investments. This, they say, will promote social and economic equity in the country by ensuring that the benefits from the state-owned resources will not be captured by a few individuals. It is one of the eight recommendations endorsed by the National Council on Wednesday.
Other recommendation is to immediately terminate the existing mining leases according to the terms and conditions of the lease and relevant laws. It also says that license of those quarries who have not registered with department of revenue and customs should be terminated.
“The mining and quarrying companies, which have not maintained books of accounts, should be suspended.” The house also decided that rules on the Income Tax Act 2001, which excludes trucks and taxis from Personal Income Tax, should be amended.
The Council’s another recommendation is that the relevant organizations in consultation with Royal Civil Service Commission should consider taking appropriate administrative actions against those officials who failed to do their duties.
The house also recommends the government to initiate two new legislations, a competition law to prevent monopolies in the market and “Accounting and Auditing Standard Act” to legitimize the role of accounting and auditing standard board of Bhutan.
The Upper House also recommended the Royal Audit Authority to regularly audit the companies that deals with extraction of the mineral resources among others.
The house then recommended Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate on the disclosing and sharing of Final Mines Feasibility Study Report.
The Performance Audit Report on leasing of government land, government Reserve Forest land and mines says that 46 final mines feasibility study reports were borrowed by the Department of Geology and Mines officials from its library and reports were never returned.
