South Africa-Canada Chamber of Business president Bruce Shapiro has rebuked the government of Ontario for raising its diamond royalty base in spite of two premiers assuring De Beers that it would remain unchanged – but MiningWatch comments that De Beers could alim it all back becase of the remoteness of its mine.

Shapiro told Terrapinn's Africa Mining Congress in Johannesburg that, even though the premiers had stated publicly that there would be no change for De Beers, the royalty base was subsequently trebled from 5% to 15% at a stage when De Beers had reached the tailend of its $1,5-billion-plus diamond-mine investment in Ontario's inhospitable north.

"What I am telling you is that what happens in Africa also happens in a supposedly well governed country like Canada," Shapiro said.

While African aberrations were headlined, those of Canada, US and UK were not.

"If I were De Beers, I would pursuing this in a legal manner," Shapiro said, also drawing attention, also, to Canadian mining-licence difficulty when there are first-nation claims over land.

The leaders of an indigenous population had recently been jailed for trespassing on a mining property over which they still had a claim and the Whitefish first nation had only weeks ago instituted a $550-billion lawsuit against Sudbury and the surrounding areas, which it claims it owns.

MiningWatch of Canada made the point in a comment on Mining Weekly Online's report that DeBeers could claim a remote mines tax holiday for up to ten years on the 12-year Victor mine, as well as a number of deductions that will effectively reduce the royalty to almost zero over the life of the mine.

MiningWatch said further that the lawsuit from the Whitefish Lake First Nation of $550-billion – and not million as we had originally stated – was approximately half of the trillion-dollar nickel, copper resource that had been and would be mined in Sudbury over 100 years.

The Whitefish Lake community had never received one cent in royalties, MiningWatch claimed.

On the jailing for trespassing, MiningWatch said that the Kitchenuhmaykoosib First Nation were jailed for contempt of court for refusing access to a mineral exploration company, the contempt charges arising from a lawsuit and injunction request filed by Platinex that demanded that the Kitchenuhmaykoosib paid $10-billion in damages to the company.

To view a video of Shapiro, go to www.miningweekly.com and click on 'Video Clips'

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