**13. Corruption in mining**

Corruption in the mining sector has been blamed for the polluted water bodies, excessive destruction of natural environments, polluted landscapes, wasted public money and polluted atmospheres. The IMF estimates that annually, over 2% of the global GDP, about USD\$2 billion is lost to corruption. Much of the corruption in mining, as with the oil and gas sectors, start generally at the issuance of prospecting rights or/and mining permits. Painful instances of the mining sector corruption are when villages are removed to open space for mining, and they are relocated to other places without any help nor fair compensation for all the costs of their relocation. Resettling the displaced must be future-focused as well, that is, the new place should be better in all aspects than the place from where they have been removed. Unfortunately, there are lots of corrupt acts including relocation to other places not initially agreed to, instalment payments where the initial agreement stipulated huge once-off payment and smaller future instalments. In grand corruption cases, we have government representatives signing for the mining of mineral B without the mention of associated minerals A, C and D, for example. In some cases, mineral B could be the third in concentration. The advantage to the miner is that in mining, they make huge revenue from minerals A, C, D, etc., which are not referred to in the Government-Miner contract. They too will not pay tax on those revenues.
