FAIR TAX AND QUALITY PUBLIC SERVICES DELIVERY IN AFRICA*
INTRODUCTION “Africa Rising” is one of the main catch phrases in International Political Economy, in recent times. It captures the fact that “Nowhere in the world do you get the kind of returns you get in Africa”, as Mr Olabisi Onasanya, the Group CEO of First Bank of Nigeria put it, during the World Economic Forum on Africa, held at Abuja in May 2014. But, in the face of such huge profits for big business, nowhere in the world do we have the kind of poverty that confronts poor working people as in Africa, fostering inequality. Resources that could be made available for the provision of public services have been drained out of the continent both illicitly and “legally” through unfair taxation systems that multinational corporations exploit to the detriment and often with the support of African states. Within African countries as well, spurred by the tax consensus which the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and other multilateral economic institutions promote, the...