Bureaucracy results in high taxes, corruption - Pres. HH
VICTORIA FALLS – Zambian President Hikainde Hichilema, has told Southern African leaders that governments’ bureaucracy irritates him as it has the tendency to inflate taxes, promote corruption and dry the treasuries.
The president, popularly known as HH, was making his remarks during the 6th Transform Africa Summit, which was also attended by His Majesty King Mswati III for the first time held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and ended on Friday.
“One of the things that irritates me as a president in my one year and seven months in office is bureaucracy or the red tape in the public sector, the time it takes to get things done.
Bureaucracy
“I have come to realise that it is not just bureaucracy, but there are hidden interests. The slower the process, the more expensive it is, the more corrupt it becomes and the less revenue that the treasury collects. And further this results in higher taxes in terms of rate the businesses pay. Why, because we have to balloon the taxes in order to cover for all these inefficiencies and time it takes to get things done. When we digitise we will lower the taxes to be borne by business, time and money wasted through corruption. And good news is that we will also be able to raise more money as the treasury,” the president noted to a large round of applause from the delegates.
He said Africa must accept that it cannot avoid digitalisation be it in the households, businesses, economies and communities.
Invest
“We must therefore take it as given, but that does not mean we must pay lip service to it.We must invest much more into it because of the value we will derive from it.
“If we want to grow production, which we should, in many areas in our continent so we can push for a step change in our economies, hence we need technology and we need digital platform,” he said.
The president said goods and services production, especially agriculture where the continent is currently exposed as a result of the war in Ukraine, with regards to production of grain and cottons for its daily needs.
He said the continent need to embrace technologies if it wants to reverse the current struggles.
Tour
“We have seen during the tour of the stalls outside the marquee that somewhere in Africa we are now manufacturing drones, which becomes useful in pest control. We can do more and turn our situation around,” he said.
The president further stated that recently, together with his Malawian counterpart, they opened a one-stop border post between the two countries.
“We were proud to listen to speeches talking about onestop border post and in my speech, I said we must not be proud to have such a border post. We should be ambitious to say we should be a non-stop border shop.
Digital
“Such a border post is possible if we have a digital platform that would incorporate all the players that necessitate for such a border to exist. If all our immigration, customs and revenue authorities have that single platform window, which can be possible through technology, then we do not need to stop a truck loaded with goods in any of our borders. The only time the driver would stop would be when he answers to a call of nature. With such a technology comes time and cost savings,” President Hichilema said.