Nigeria loses a whopping $2.9 bn (N577 bn) annually to top the highest losers chart of the $9.6 bn lost by West Africa yearly to corporate tax waivers, a report entitled “The West African Giveaway: Use and Abuse of Corporate Tax Incentives in ECOWAS”, has revealed.
The report was the outcome of a research conducted by the ActionAid and the Tax Justice Network Africa (TJN-A) launched yesterday in Abuja as an extension of earlier studies on development funding.
The report said that while Nigeria’s annual N2.9 bn loss was more than the federal government’s budget to education, the Ghanaian loss of $2.27 bn yearly was three time its budget allocation to health.
“Despite serious questions about their usefulness and their large revenue losses, the use of tax incentives in ECOWAS member states is common practice. It reveals that granting tax incentives to investors, notably foreign companies, is depriving governments of money to pay for essential services like health, education and infrastructure, hindering regional integration and failing in the stated objective of attracting new foreign direct investment,” the report stated.
Speaking earlier, the Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria, Ms. Ojobo Atuluku, said many African countries lack capacity to fund their development strategies and had been dependent on donor nations and development partners, but that the new global economic reality has also shown that dependence on aid has become unsustainable, unrealistic and not in the interest of developing countries, especially in the global South.
The report was the outcome of a research conducted by the ActionAid and the Tax Justice Network Africa (TJN-A) launched yesterday in Abuja as an extension of earlier studies on development funding.
The report said that while Nigeria’s annual N2.9 bn loss was more than the federal government’s budget to education, the Ghanaian loss of $2.27 bn yearly was three time its budget allocation to health.
“Despite serious questions about their usefulness and their large revenue losses, the use of tax incentives in ECOWAS member states is common practice. It reveals that granting tax incentives to investors, notably foreign companies, is depriving governments of money to pay for essential services like health, education and infrastructure, hindering regional integration and failing in the stated objective of attracting new foreign direct investment,” the report stated.
Speaking earlier, the Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria, Ms. Ojobo Atuluku, said many African countries lack capacity to fund their development strategies and had been dependent on donor nations and development partners, but that the new global economic reality has also shown that dependence on aid has become unsustainable, unrealistic and not in the interest of developing countries, especially in the global South.
Source: dailytrust
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