Tax experts, union leaders, and civil society organisations from across Africa have called for urgent reforms to tax policies in Ghana, Nigeria, and other African countries, stressing the need to ensure multinational corporations and wealthy enterprises pay their fair share of taxes.
Speaking at the Regional Working Group on Tax Policy Alternatives in Abuja, participants lamented that government workers and people in the informal sector bear the heaviest tax burden, while big companies continue to benefit from tax holidays, waivers, and exemptions without delivering on promises of job creation and infrastructure development.
Speaking on the subject, one of the speakers, Principal Revenue Officer of the Ghana Revenue Authority and Divisional Secretary of the GNRA Public Service Workers Union, Mr. Charles Thompson, emphasised the need for corporate alternative minimum taxes, but raised concerns on accountability.
He warned that individuals already pay too much while companies underpay.
He said, “We have identified that over the period there is a lot of tax incentives that we grant them, a lot of exemptions that we grant to these companies, and that we are not also seeing the benefits based on which we grant them those incentives and exemptions. And therefore, it is very, very important that we look at reforming our tax policies to bring in more revenues for us. Now, the workshop has shown that in Africa we have a revenue deficit of about 400 billion.
“Generally, we know that individuals are paying more taxes, especially government workers and those in the informal sector. But when it comes to our big companies that are earning more profits, we are not getting much from them as it is supposed to be.”
As a solution, he called for the implementation of corporate Alternative Minimum Taxes, which would ensure that companies benefiting from incentives still contribute a fair share to national revenues.
From Kenya, Secretary General of the Union of Kenya Civil Servants and a Member of Parliament, Mr. Tom Mboya Odege, said workers suffer the heaviest burden.
He explained how Kenyans lose nearly half their salaries to multiple taxes while criticising unnecessary tax holidays granted to multinationals.
He said, “We have discovered that majorly our countries are purely funded by taxes from workers and there is no worker who is lucky to evade the tax. So if we allow the trend to continue this will continue to be a burden to those who are working in those countries.
“If you are lucky in Kenya to get 50% of your hard-earned money you are just lucky because tax is only taking over 50%. It’s very high.
“We don’t want any more tax holidays. We don’t want any more excuse of attracting investors. If you are ready to come and invest in our countries, you must be ready to pay tax so that we develop our countries.”
As part of the solutions, he insisted that African countries should end arbitrary tax holidays and compel investors to pay taxes as part of their social responsibility to support national development.
In her words, National Treasurer of the Doctors Union in Kenya and member of the Global Tax Justice Network, Dr. Mercy Nabwire, highlighted the global shift in tax governance.
She called for unions to strengthen advocacy and ensure governments take worker-centered positions at the UN negotiations in Nairobi this November.
She said, “Through the work of this network and other civil society organizations, we were able to advocate for the global tax governance conversations to be shifted away from the OECD to the UN, and this led to what we are now calling the UN Conventional Framework for International Tax Cooperation that allows for all UN member states to be involved in the conversations.
“The only guarantee is how much or how badly do the citizens want it, and then how are they organizing to build power to hold their governments accountable.”
She urged unions and civil society to mobilise stronger grassroots pressure to ensure African governments defend citizens’ interests during global tax negotiations.
In his goodwill message, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Resident Director, Mr. Lennart Oestergaard, compared African tax struggles with Germany’s system.
He explained how Germany funds universal healthcare and strong infrastructure with higher but fairer taxation and suggested that Africa adopt fair VAT rules.
He said, “I think that the tax systems in Ghana and Nigeria have sometimes similar challenges, which you might want to compare. But in general, I think countries, especially on the African continent, really struggle to do what’s called domestic resource mobilization.
“In Germany, as some of you might know, we have a free healthcare system. Every major disease is being treated completely for free. Every German citizen has a mandatory health insurance. Even homeless people are covered.
“Maybe you can put a very high VAT on an expensive car, but you can put a very low VAT on something that everyone needs to survive.”
As part of his recommendation, he urged African governments to design tax systems that balance fairness with development needs, citing VAT differentiation and stronger transparency as key lessons from the workshop.
The Chairman National Council of Civil Service Unions (NCC), Mr. Dinepre Torukoregha, represented by Deputy Secretary General of AUPCTRE,Aloe Lawrence stressed that unions must continue engaging with government to push for tax justice and workers’ protection.
The Executive Director of CISLAC, Comrade Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, represented by the Program Manager and National Coordinator of the Tax Justice and Governance Platform, Mr. Ayo Omowu, highlighted the UN Tax Convention as a historic opportunity for developing countries.
He further called on African leaders to speak with one voice at the global level, stressing that fragmented positions would only weaken the continent’s bargaining power in securing just tax policies that benefit citizens.
He said, “As civil society, we recognize the UN Tax Convention as a historic opportunity to curb illicit financial flows, strengthen domestic resource mobilization, and ensure that multinational corporations and high-net-worth individuals pay their fair share of taxes without evasion.”
The Abuja meeting ended with a call for governments, unions, civil society, and the media to unite in demanding accountability and fairness in tax collection and spending across Africa.
