African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Swaziland
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • #EndSARS
  • Specials
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Swaziland
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • #EndSARS
  • Specials
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
Politics

AU Chair Dlamini-Zuma complains that discussions on tax “always take place at the end of the G8″ – By Magnus Taylor

By African Arguments
June 19, 2013
1447
0
Share:

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union, wants to get tough on tax avoidance in Africa (Photo: Ben Elwyn).

Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union, congratulated G8 countries for taking issues of tax and transparency seriously, particularly with reference to African countries. However, she questioned why such discussion “always take placed at the end of the G8″ suggesting that the issue warrants a more central focus. This had seemed likely when British Prime Minister David Cameron made the “˜3 Ts’ – Trade, Tax and Transparency – the theme of this year’s meeting.

However, it has been suggested that the current crisis in Syria, perhaps justifiably, gained most of the G8’s serious attention. Nonetheless, NGOs campaigning for greater regulation of tax havens and other (currently legal) methods of tax avoidance, professed disappointment at a failure to come to a deal. Whilst, as Larry Elliott reports in the Guardian, Cameron announced “real progress”, campaigners such as the Tax Justice Network saw commitments as vague and non-binding.

Dr Dlamini-Zuma, speaking last night at the Royal African Society’s Annual Lecture, also commented on the existence of inequitable contracts within the extractive industries in Africa – the sector that has been most influential for high economic growth in the continent over the past 10 years. She added that often companies that engage in corrupt practises in Africa have bigger legal budgets to fight such cases than the governments with which they negotiate.

This was a point that was reiterated by RAS Chair Lord Malloch-Brown, who stated that legal and accounting firms, often based in the City of London, should show greater responsibility regarding which companies they aid in pursuing unethical practises. Malloch-Brown’s consulting firm FTI Capital recently settled out of court with Israeli mining magnate Benny Steinmetz’s BSG Resources after being sued by the company following the blocking of the BSG’s proposed development of a mine in Guinea by President Alpha Conde. FTI Consulting has, however, not accepted liability in the case.

Dlamini-Zuma, who delivered a lecture entitled: “˜The African Union: the next 50 years’, detailed a number of other practises used by multinational corporations in order to limit the amount of tax they pay in the countries in which they operate. For example, undervaluing the commodities they have extracted in order to be taxable on a smaller profit.

She also complained about the lack of transparency in the registration of companies which transgress – “we don’t even know who owns the company” she said, but admitted that for contracts to be effective “both companies and governments must be accountable”.

Dr Dlamini-Zuma, whose lecture set Africa’s underdevelopment in its historical context, was particularly critical of the implementation of “˜structural adjustment’ in the 1980s and 90s which had “choked off public expenditures on social services.”

On “˜Land Grabbing’, Dlamini-Zuma stated that if foreign governments or companies wanted to buy up large areas of Africa’s agricultural land or “˜Greenfield sites’ for industry, then what is produced “must at least be partially [produced] in the continent.”

Finally, when questioned on the AU’s capacity to help get rid of corrupt, ineffective regimes, such as that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dlamini-Zuma strongly argued that if a government has been democratically elected then there is nothing the AU can do about the way in which it runs the country. Only when a coup takes place is the AU prepared to step in.

Magnus Taylor is Editor of African Arguments.

Previous Article

Waiting for Elections in 2013: 11 Theses ...

Next Article

Memo to the SRF: try not to ...

mm

African Arguments

Leave a reply Cancel reply

  • Politics

    Sudan and the ‘Island of Stability’ myth – By Ahmed Kodouda

  • Sierra Leone politics: On the streets of the capital Freetown, Sierra Leone. Credit: Eduardo Fonseca Arraes.
    PoliticsSierra LeoneTop story

    Sierra Leone: The new government’s tense struggle for control a year on

  • Politics

    Somalia is still fragile, but fragile is progress

The Africa Insiders Newsletter

Get the free edition of our exclusive look at this week’s most important developments on the continent.

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!

  • 77461
    Followers

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Most read

  • The police block opposition presidential candidate Bobi Wine in December 2020 during the Uganda presidential election campaign. Credit: HEBobiwine.

    Uganda: How donors can go beyond “strongly-worded statements”

  • A youth convention in Rwanda in 2017. Credit: Paul Kagame.

    The disappearance of half a million young people from Rwanda’s stats

  • Tunisians mark Martyrs' Day in Tunis on 9 April 2013 to demand justice for victims of the 2011 revolution. Credit: Magharebia.

    The Tunisian Revolution’s young dreams are unfulfilled but unforgotten

  • maghreb queer film A shot from Raja Amari’s Al Dowaha (Buried Secrets).

    Silence and skin: Depicting queerness in Maghrebian films

  • africa vaccine Community representatives in Beni, North Kivu, DRC, spreading health awareness. Photo: World Bank / Vincent Tremeau

    Africa has a history of vaccine hesitancy but also of solutions to it

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu