Pretoria - Commissioners General of South Africa’s bordering countries are to formally establish a forum that will take forward the development of economies as well as to stop the illicit trade among others, says South African Revenue Service (SARS) Commissioner Tom Moyane.
“Today’s session is to formalise the establishment of the forum of Commissioners General in the region in which we take the agenda of development of our economies especially in revenue collection, strengthen our customs activities, stop illicit trade coming in and deal with drug trafficking, money laundering and all those nefarious activities but equally put a task team that is going to formalise the establishment of a forum of Commissioners General in the region,” Commissioner Moyane told SAnews on Thursday.
This as SARS convened a second forum of commissioners from 11 countries including Angola, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia and South Africa to unpack core tax and customs issues especially linked to illicit financial flows (IFF).
“We hope by end of this financial year in December, semblance of the establishment of this forum should have resonance with us and find expression to the point where we can say that the Commissioners General have in principle achieved this objective,” he said.
The Commissioner said the team led by former President Thabo Mbeki in the Economic Commission for Africa said that approximately $60 billion (in IFF) leave Africa on an annual basis.
“If you look into that amount of money, it could have changed the face of our continent. It could also change the plight of our people to a better dispensation but at the same time we need to address the factors of unemployment, these illicit financial flows affect productivity but the poorer much heavily,” he explained.
The Commissioner said today’s gathering - which follows from an earlier session held in July - is about the coming together of Commissioners General with one common view that there’s a need to work together and collaborate on issues like collection of revenue.
“Underpinning that we are aware of illicit financial flows that affect our continent, our region and the world. Therefore it is our duty as Commissioners General that we stamp the tide of financial outflows out of our countries,” he said.
Commissioner Moyane said while Commissioners General are tasked with revenue collection, this is in order to support the initiatives of their respective countries.
“But we see there is excessive bleeding and outflows of cash from our region that could have been used profitably to maximise and make the lives of our people much better,” he explained.
Among the harm done by IFFs is that it reduces much needed finances to fund social development programmes and economic infrastructure that is imperative to raising the standards of living of vulnerable people in society.
In addition, by depriving the fiscus of much needed resources, IFFs force developing countries to go with empty bowls in hand to ask for aid grants that if granted has many strings attached.
“Africa has so much resources, we are a resource based continent. We cannot allow ourselves to be beggars and going into international financial institutions begging for money when we have the resources that could make our country much richer,” said Moyane.
The forum, which was held at the Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria, seeks to chart a road map and maximise the respective participating countries’ statutory mandates of revenue collection. – SAnews.gov.za
