Taxation: Promoting Economic Recovery & Inclusive Growth in Africa

On Tuesday, June 28, 2022, Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) hosted a virtual event in partnership with Coca-Cola Africa entitled “Taxation: Promoting Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth in Africa.” It featured a diverse panel of speakers which included H.E. Nadia Fettah Alaoui who is the Minister of Economy and Finance of Morocco, Tiago Santos who is a representative of Angolan Revenue, and Ahmed Rady who is Coca-Cola North Africa’s VP of Franchise Operations. The discussion began with opening remarks by CCA’s President and CEO, Florie Liser, introducing the session’s main theme of the role taxation in African economies play on private sector companies, individual taxpayers, and governments by regulating the affiliation between these entities, implementation to enforcement, and tax policy formulations. Welcome remarks were continued by Patricia Obozuwa, Vice President for Public Affairs, Communications & Sustainability for Coca-Cola Africa.The program featured moderator Daniel Witt of International Tax and Investment Center who introduced the speakers and generated questions to the panel to focus the dialogue. Mr. Witt began with inquiring about the balance needed for revenue and investment climates which was answered by all three panelists. H.E. Nadia Fettah Alaoui touched on Morocco’s need for strong and social solidarity which helps manage revenue and being able to keep discipline in fiscal and tax policies. Tiago Santos spoke on how the pandemic was unfortunately damaging to Angola’s ability to generate the most needed revenue that would help the government without hurting taxpayers. He also stated that the government should start focusing on diversifying their economy and not only relying on oil but considering all business types. Ahmed Rady considered the youth population in his response. Rady discussed how short-term revenue policies are not necessarily needed, but to be most effective governments need to focus on increasing growth in all areas by increasing employment and starting with smaller business ventures while creating an economy that is constructively competing for investment resources with the rest of the world.In regards to individual taxpayers and the current inflation issues, the speakers all took a positive and similar approach considering the people and their comfortability to taxes at the forefront of responses. Tiago Santos explored the thought of informal tax of paying for customers with consideration to decreasing taxes on food products to make it easier and more affordable for people to want to pay taxes. H.E. Nadia Fettah Alaoui also considered a parallel way to handle taxpayers by creating the solution of informal sectors with incentives and maintain clarity and communication of policies, proper timelines, and spectrum awareness on both sides of the table, taxpayers and tax collectors.Another topic of questioning that was brought up in the program was about the economies of each country. The Minister of Economy and Finance in Morocco and Ahmed Rady decided to take this question on with H.E. Nadia Fettah Alaoui beginning by introducing the strategy of creating a more diverse economy and negotiating with international investors for long term investment plans. H.E. Alaoui vocalized the economic strategy would create strong human capital and competitiveness which in turn would help strengthen the overall economy. Rady included Coca Cola Africa being open to providing availability for local investment and local supply chain in preference to always support locally in order to improve the local economy which helps finances larger production.Mr. Witt continued the discussion with questioning the introduction and complication of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to Africa. Tiago Santos deliberated on the difficulty of the implementation of OECD resource constraints. He communicated that it is challenging to act as a developing nation but working with partners and global forums to gather valuable information in tax agreements and tax exchanges helps move his specific country and government forward.The program then moved onto the question-and-answer session which featured few attendees being allowed to probe problems related to taxation policies and solutions for the relationship between taxpayers and the government, locally and nationally. One attendee, Marius van Oordt of the African Tax Institute asked about the potential for private and public sector to analyze data and any challenges that may be created in doing so. The response by a panel speaker was that getting data is complex and analyzing the data is even harder but government entities can properly exchange information if it is through the same up to date digital systems and both sides want to work equally with each other.Closing remarks were made by CCA’s President and CEO, Florie Liser, to wrap up the program with speakers and attendees being thanked for being open to the virtual discussion.