ACBF Academy to build capacity of African tax officials to tackle challenges of revenue mobilization

Tax officials in Africa have been grappling with the challenges of revenue mobilization, leading to loopholes in the tax systems being exploited causing large losses through illicit financial flows of about $60 billion every year.

One of the main causes of these losses is tax avoidance by corporations using aggressive tax strategies. As part of efforts to plug the holes, the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) is working towards developing a unique online training product to build the capacity of Africa tax officials in revenue mobilization through its ACBF Academy. It organised a workshop in Accra to figure out the way forward.

Nbacke Niang, who is head of ACBF’s West and Central Africa Regional Office and Director of Programmes and Impact, in an exclusive interview with Ghana Business News said the programme is aimed at building the capacity of tax officials in Africa to improve their tax collection.

He says the ACBF is working with the African-Finnish Partnerships on Taxation Capacity in Africa (AFP-TCA) Programme with funding from the Finish government. He also noted that the programme is managed by the Finnish Institute of Public Management Ltd (HAUS).

“The objective is to enhance the capacity of tax officials in revenue mobilization. We all know that the challenge we are facing in Africa is how we can mobilize the resources. How we can manage tax avoidance and people not willing to pay their taxes. The exercise of this workshop was to map out the landscape of training, especially the digital ones that are offered across Africa,” he said.

He said ACBF brought in representatives from tax offices in many countries Africa and also from regional organsizations.

“The objective was to discuss with them and see how we can carve out a tailor-made digital training to compensate the gaps, and also to ensure that the different offers are also cross-fertilized. It is to design something that meets our needs and using digital that, can help in enhancing not only policy but also performance in revenue mobilization,” he said.

Niang added that the programme will develop a product that really meets the needs of African countries. One that is not a repetition, but a product that is responsive to the needs that they have identified, “it is a complementary product,” he explained.

The objective is to enhance the capacity of tax officials in revenue mobilization. We all know that the challenge we are facing in Africa is how we can mobilize the resources. How we can manage tax avoidance and people not willing to pay their taxes.

“The other thing is how we can leverage the digitalization. We are building an academy to host all the training we have and this will be one of them. We hope that people who are targeted will be able to access it in a very friendly manner, but it will be very affordable, and this will go far to reach more people,” he added.

Dr Nara Monkam, an Associate Professor, Department of Economics, and Head of the Public Policy Hub, University of Pretoria, South Africa was the tax expert who facilitated the workshop in Accra to develop the online training product. She spoke to Ghana Business News after the two-day workshop held from November 21 to 22, 2023.

She said, participants were drawn from Anglophone and Francophone countries to dialogue and have a clearer understanding of what the needs and priorities of digital tax training are in the specific countries.

From the interactions she said; “ACBF would use that information to set up a capacity training plan that will address the needs of tax administration in Francophone and Anglophone Africa. They will later expand it to Lusophone and Arabic countries.”

She also said the tax administration landscape in Africa is already well occupied by very strong regional organisations like the Africa Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), Tax Justice Network and the African Union which recently launched the African tax strategy.

“Now the idea is for ACBF to carve its own niche in this African tax landscape, so that they can complement the services already offered in the continental tax administration. They complement the services in a way that is original without repeating what is already being done. And that is why they want to come out strong in digital tax training, where they believe they can bring efficiency in tax administration,” she added.

One of the participants, Dr Umar Idris Ahmed, who is the Director of Training – Federal Internal Revenue Service of Nigeria was happy to exchange ideas with other participants.

He said while the workshop gave him the opportunity to share ideas with his other colleagues, he has also learned a lot.

“I actually came with my own perspectives from my country, which I shared with the participants. I had conducted a survey on what my country needs at this time to grow revenue, and the overarching purpose of our being here is to grow revenues for our countries,” he said.

Dr Ahmed added that he learned about emerging trends and was happy to have developed strategies with his colleagues to address the challenges in revenue mobilization in their respective countries.

In response to a question about areas in Africa’s tax administration that are overlooked, Nissa Gaya, Section Head of the Fiscal Investigations and Anti-Money Laundering Counter-Terrorism Financing Unit of the Mauritius Revenue Authority, who also participated in the workshop, said the areas of illicit financial flows are not given the needed attention.

She said “the areas of illicit financial flows are under-appreciated and not being catered for enough in our African countries. Because this is where we are bleeding more.” To address that, she said African countries need more hands-on training that is not only theoretical, but also practical. “We need to go and see where we are bleeding and stop the hemorrhaging,” she added.

Niang thanked the participants for their dedication at the workshop, and acknowledged their generosity in sharing useful information.

“It is no one’s task to come and help us. We have to develop products that are meaningful for our context and for our business and this goes directly in that direction. This workshop has provided a lot of options in terms of information gathering, and in terms of ideas that we can fine-tune and develop the model that we want,” he said.

By Emmanuel K Dogbevi & Kizito Cudjoe
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