Payment of real property tax to come later, says Nicua exec

TACLOBAN CITY – Mines and Geosciences Bureau Regional Director Roger De Dios said that the claims of some members of the provincial board that the mining firm Nicua Mining Corporation had not paid their real property tax for the province of Leyte is still premature.

“Actually, this will still come in the later part once they have submitted their annual report,” said De Dios in an interview.

Said annual report of Nicua will be submitted to the MGB central office as it is their cental office which will determine how much tax will the mining firm would need to provide as the government share, De Dios.

The audit report for their performance will come out a year after their operation, the MGB-8 director said.

Nicua Mining Corporation vice president for operation Alex Deleoz, when asked to comment,said that they will definitely pay real property tax to the provincial government.

“Definitely we are going to pay, but we will still need to verify if the assessment is the right thing,” said Deleoz.

“We are a responsible company and we (employees) are also are responsible to the company that is why we still need to verify if we are going to pay the right thing for it will cost our job,” Deleoz said.

“Anybody can just claim and if we will just do it without verifying it will be a loss to the company,” he added.

The issue that Nicua had not paid real property taxes to the province surfaced during a recent session of the provincial board after the provincial assessor provided some members of the provincial board members a report that said company had failed to pay real property taxes to the province despite the fact that they had been buying properties in the area for their mining operation.

Non-paying of real property tax might affect the delivery of basic services provided by the province to its constituents Board Member Anlie Apostol said in an interview, as the provincial government source out some of its funds from the collection of real property taxes collected by the provincial government. (Roel Amazona)