Group Urges Review Of Trade, Tax Laws

Deputy Executive Director,  Tax Justice Network Africa  (TJNA),  Jason Braganza has called on African countries to begin a holistic review of all trade and tax laws as well as international trade treaties entered into in the last decades.
The call came at the ongoing 5th Pan-African Conference on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) from Africa, where it was buttressed that Africa lost over 50 billion dollars to multinationals who took advantage of weak tax laws and unfair trade treaties.
The two-day conference, organised by TJNA in Nairobi, Kenya, was aimed at redefining and recalculating IFFs from Africa and pushing for implementation of recommendations.
In an interview with newsmen on the sidelines of the conference, Braganza said Africa was yet to ascertain the real amount being lost to IFFs as the quoted 50 billion dollars was just a fraction of the entire sum.
He said that the conference was part of efforts to broaden Africa’s approach to defining and calculating illicit financial flows with a view to stopping them.
Braganza said that there were a number of ways through which multinational companies cheated African countries, taking advantage of weak laws and policies without breaking them.
“When we talk about broadening the definition, what we mean is the need to come up with an approach that includes aggressive tax planning by high net worth individuals as well as big multinational corporations who engage in harmful tax practices in order to maximise their profits.
“This sort of arrangement provides them with the platform to hide or not fully reveal the kind of activities they have been undertaking, the kind of incomes they are making.
“They are able to hide what they are supposed to be paying to government; this is a big problem,” he said.