CURB TAX AVOIDANCE, SAYS ACTION AID

AFRICA needs to take a leading role in coming up with ways of combating tax avoidance and other illicit financial flows (IFFs) because the continent is losing a lot of resources through the scourge.

Action Aid Zambia (AAZ) country director Pamela Chisanga said Africa should not wait for developed countries to advance the fight against IFFs because the continent was the main victim.

Ms Chisanga said African countries, including Zambia, were losing a lot of resources due to IFFs, hence the need for the countries to position themselves to be able to curb tax avoidance and dubious financial flows.

Doing so would enable the countries in the continent to collect resources which they have not been able to collect in the past and channel it towards poverty reduction.

She said Zambia and Africa as a whole were not doing much in closing up the loopholes through which resources were being lost.

Ms Chisanga said this during a one-day AAZ media training workshop in Lusaka last Thursday.

“As a country, we are not doing much to unplug the loopholes. We are waiting for developed countries to come up with guidelines.