A recent campaign by the charity ActionAid draws attention to the plight of market traders in Africa who are apparently paying more in tax than the huge multinationals located next to their humble market stores.
I contacted ActionAid to find out more. One of the examples they gave me was of Marta Luttgrodt, a Ghanaian market trader who pays £47 a year in corporation tax to the government, unlike British multi-national Brewer SABMillar which allegedly pays nothing at all.
Outraged, I contacted SAB to get their side of the story. They were happy to admit to not paying corporation tax - because their business only just broke even. However, their accounts show they actually did pay around $12million in excise duty and other taxes. In addition, they employ a large number of Ghanaians who spend their money in the local economy thereby creating further employment and taxes for the government.
A few years ago on a visit to Uganda, officials told me the one thing they desperately wanted was not more aid handouts from Western countries, but western multinationals investing money and providing skilled jobs - in other words companies like SABMiller.
The mining company Glencore were also singled out as paying less in corporation tax than another trader.
I haven’t yet had a chance to check this out, but I would hazard a guess that Glencore pay more in taxes of one sort of another than the market trader they are being compared with.
I am sure ActionAid, like most western charities who give out money in Africa, are a well meaning bunch. I am sure their clever adverts will pull in lots of subscriptions from angry westerners.
But it is unfair to criticise companies for not paying corporation tax without making it clear that they are paying millions of dollars in other forms of taxation.
I can’t help but wonder how much tax ActionAid pay to the Ghanaian government and how many local people they employ.
I have asked them and I look forward to being able to make a fair judgement as to whether they are contributing more or less overall than the multinationals who they so clearly despise.