IFF POLICY BRIEFS Introduction On November 5th 2017, a set of 13.4 million confidential electronic files relating to offshore investments went public in what was known as the paradise papers (link). The files exposed over 120,000 people and multinational companies engaged in Illicit Financial Flows[i] (IFFs) practices including tax evasion, corruption and aggressive tax planning…
On 5-7th February 2018, about 600 participants drawn from non-governmental organisations and community activists met at the 9th Alternative Mining Indaba in Cape Town, South Africa. The three-day meeting was held under the theme “Making Natural Resources Work for the People: Towards Just Legal, Policy and Institutional Reforms.” The conversations which ranged from Gender and Legal Reforms, The Role of…
As the revelations from the Paradise Papers continue to emerge, we see that this latest in a succession of leaks demonstrates how the global network of tax havens and the secrecy they enable continue to thrive. Though many focus on the ‘scandals’ the leaks have created for users of this secrecy system, the true injustice…
Negative ramifications foreseen with enactment of NIFC Bill NAIROBI- 31 August 2017 –On 21 July 2017 Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the Nairobi International Financial Centre Act into law essentially transforming the city of Nairobi into a tax haven through the establishment of the Nairobi International Financial Centre (NIFC). The enactment of the Bill is…
The eminent need to bridge the ever increasing budget deficit has forced governments to think of innovative forms of financing development especially by engaging the citizenry and making a use of other applicable alternatives besides relying on tax revenues. On 23 March, 2017 Kenya became the first country in the world to float mobile traded…
Africa has not benefited substantially from its mineral wealth. It is, therefore, essential for resource-rich nations to tailor their economic policies to effectively harness and utilise mineral revenues to improve the productivity of non-mineral sectors to break out of the extractive enclave. The remarkable extractives-driven economic growth of the last decade across Africa failed to…
Taxation is the most sustainable and reliable source of domestic revenue to improve African governments’ investment in children- focused sectors such as health and education. It is important to note that the provision of basic services presupposes the existence of adequate financial resources. As we commemorate the International Day of the African Child (DAC), Tax…
In April and May of 2016, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) made public the largest ever investigation into international fraud, exposing a cast of characters who use offshore companies to facilitate bribery, arms deals, tax evasion, financial fraud and drug trafficking. The revelations dubbed the ‘Panama papers’ has brought to the fore systemic…
The 2016 IMF/World Bank spring meetings offered a glimmer of hope for international taxation in general and tax justice in particular. It was clear from the discussions that there is a global consensus that the international tax system is broken just as the Panama Papers revealed recently. Various discussants referred to Panama Papers and the…
Cape Town, 6 May 2016—Just one month after the Panama Papers hit newsstands, the South African government has committed to tackling the very type of hidden ownership that was central to many offshore structures scrutinized in the months-long investigation. On the sidelines of the Open Government Partnership Africa Regional Meeting, the South African government announced…
