President of the MMD faction Felix Mutati has expressed worry with the low tax compliance levels in most African countries, a trend which he says has potential to affect service delivery.
Mr. Mutati a former cabinet minister has urged respective African governments to devise methods to make tax payment more persuasive than an imposition.
He was guest speaker at Crowne Plaza Hotel during a 3-day international conference organised by the Jesuit Hakimani Centre in Nairobi, Kenya under the theme “Improving Domestic Resource Mobilisation and stemming illicit financial flows”.
Mr. Mutati said that to achieve this, governments must ensure that citizens appreciate the benefits of tax payment and illustrated that during his reign as Finance Minister, one of his primary driving forces was to ensure that enough resources were mobilised in order that people’s development aspirations are met.
He has bemoaned the levels of borrowing which most countries have been associated with.
After evaluating the previous conference and strategizing the translations of its findings for Kenya and the countries of the East African Community, the Module will aim to educate, engage and mobilize local and national stakeholder and bind them together in Joint Advocacy at a date that will be announced by the Jesuit Hakimani
It could be good for Mutati to go work out there in Kenya. I don’t think he will get job in next government.
Maybe as Minister of Foreign Affairs which UPND don’t have.
Dear Felix,
There is low tax compliance but then there is HIGH embezzlement of the low tax collected. That is why citizens in Africa do not want pay tax.
Seems most of these government officials may know what needs to be done. The problem is that when they are offerred kick backs, they shelve the progressive ideas in preferrence to person financail aggrendizement than protecting the resources distribution to benefit their countrymen and women. Mutati was there, he approved borrowing and borrowing insteady of harnessing local taxes through the prudence he now preaches to others.
Tax compliance can only be achieved in an environment where there is proper tax administration. Regimes that have no respect for monies collected from citizenry, need to be sanctioned and litigation measures imposed on such governments. Corruption is the worst element that hinders tax compliance. Most of civil servants who are tasked with the responsibility of tax administration are very corrupt.
The other thing is the bloated informal sector that is difficult to manage. There should be a mechanism of bringing into the tax net the informal sector. Most of the tax burden is shouldered on formal sector which is very slim. There should be a plan to ensure that each and every person who earns an income is captured into the tax net.
Citizens are not getting their services from the government that is why they don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes. Improve medical services for all citizens and I will be happy to pay taxes. But if you use my taxes to send politicians outside the country for medical checkups, that makes me very unhappy as a taxpayer.
People on Western Countries pay willingly because benefits can easily be seen and leaders are held accountable. The cancer of corruption is responsible for the low tax compliance in africa as leaders get rich overnight in front of our eyes. Stop corruption, be accountable and deliver services then people will happily pay tax in Africa.
If the highest earners pay nothing into public coffers, why would the lower echelons volunteer their substantially smaller incomes to be abused?
Vonotto: you got it wrong. Its the other way round.
To understand taxation one has to marry it with it’s origin.It is not an African concept and therefore not understood by many. From attaining “in-dependance “African states should have worked on traditional concepts which helped communities thrive centuries before the colonialists came complying our people to pay taxes. This is what is expected of graduates like Mr.Mutati to solve.Start from the roots and do not perpetuate the colonisers’ ways. The masses then begin to view Governments as new colonisers. It explains why we forever are begging to the architects of the systems and yet claim in-dependance. Remember, he who has economic power has political control.