Ghana Still Safe Haven For Tax Dodgers

The Ghana government has practically stood aloof since civil society organization, ActionAid alleged in a 2010 report that the world�s second largest brewer SABMiller through its subsidiary Accra Brewery Limited had dodged taxes in three years out of the four years they operated. According to the report, SABMiller sells �29m of beer a year, but in two years declared losses and paid corporation tax in only one of the four years from 2007-2010. SABMiller Plc has however denied these allegations and initiated steps to discuss the matter with authorities in the said African countries. In an e-mailed response to questions from Bloomberg News, the company stated that �SABMiller strongly refutes the allegations made in ActionAid�s report. We do not engage in aggressive tax planning in any part of our operations, and the report includes a number of flawed and inaccurate assumptions.� Nonetheless, the phenomenon about capital flight still persists in Africa and particularly in Ghana. Capital flight is usually unrecorded and mostly untaxed illicit leakage of capital and resources out of a country. Ghana was identified as one of the five African countries including Liberia, Mauritius, Botswana and the Seychelles which are secrecy jurisdictions. Ghana lost an estimated $4.9 billion between 1970 and 2008 as a result of capital flight. Experts say what most of these multi-national companies in Africa do is permanently put revenues beyond the reach of appropriate domestic authorities and much of these revenues are not traced because of deliberate misreporting. This is not to implicate any company but it certainly is a worry if government is unable to verify whether or not the figures these multinational companies quote as cost is really accurate. One of the practices some of these multinationals indulge in has been described by experts as �transfer mispricing� which is against open market pricing. Usually the parent companies of these companies that dodge the taxes, sell to each other at inflated prices; inflating costs in intra-corporate financial transactions (especially prices for �intangibles�) leaving governments without any solutions to the �smart� moves. As at this point, there is no clear cut policy directive from government through the Ghana Revenue Authority. Many of these companies still enjoy tax holidays especially in the first five years of their operations ostensibly to entice investors, who will within these five years, try and recoup their investments. Unfortunately, some have taken advantage, and after making profits, sold out the firms to avoid taxes and this has largely happened in the telecommunication sector. What is more worrying for Ghana is that, following the discovery and subsequent production of oil, the world�s attention has turned to the country obviously for genuine investments but there are certainly the dubious ones that are racing into the country to assess how they can take advantage of the system. Checks at the Ghana Investments Promotions Centre reveal, there are at least dozens of official enquiries from foreign companies on how to do business in the oil and gas industry with many of them initiating moves to start. In view of the seeming vulnerability of the tax system, the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) and the Tax Justice Coalition together with the global campaign to end tax haven secrecy have initiated massive campaigns to sensitize Ghanaians about the unspoken troubles Ghana is facing. The Ghana government in its 2012 budget statement admitted the country is losing about $35 million dollars a year in Transfer Mispricing but the coordinator for the Tax Justice Coalition Ghana Bernard Anaba said, �there has not been much improvement after government announced it will try and halt the phenomenon. Certain tax laws on Transfer Mispricing and policy directions have still not seen the light of day�. He however added that �the draft regulation is in Parliament but there has not been any major action on it�. The situation is not only a headache for Ghana, but the entire continent. The Country Manager for East Africa for ActionAid, Dr. Dereje Alemayehu, at a Reuters-sponsored training workshop said, �for every dollar of AID that comes to Africa, $10 dollars go out. In simple terms, proportionally more resources flow out of Africa than come in�. Even though the overwhelming bulk of this loss in capital through illicit means was from Sub-Saharan African countries, there are significant regional differences with Western African countries particularly those endowed with natural resources representing the highest amount of illicit transfers. Dr. Dereje Alemayehu said, �tax dodgers are as guilty as criminals who steal monies here and get jailed�.