“The power to tax is the power to destroy.” ~ Modibo Mohammed Al Kaburi.
NTOABOMA — What is the African Union (AU) but a collection of African Heads of States, many of whom lack the full mandate (if any) of their people. What is the African Union but a rag-thug organization of elite Africans, spoon-fed by aid dollars, who travel, collect and chop per diem at the behest of the poor tax payers in their respective countries? What really is the African Union but a defunct organization that takes orders from special interest groups from western nations – that like to see Africans wallow in poverty – and refuses to recognize Haiti as a truly African nation?
This proposal to impose a tax on Africans by a collection of elites, who are without the mandate of the people of Africa, is a kidnapping of the utmost monstrous proportion. There is no time in the history of man, except for a hijacking of a whole continent – which until now has never happened – when a select few have single-handedly decided to force a hefty landmass of people, an entire continent the size of Africa, to pay taxes. It is unprecedented that an organization no one ever voted into office would sit somewhere out of sight and impose taxes on citizens.
Who are these miscreants?
On Monday, 18 July 2016 in Kigali, the buffoonery of the Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union organization was exposed. Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma welcomed a “groundbreaking decision” of the Assembly to institute a levy of 0.2 percent on eligible imports into Africa, in order to address the funding challenges that the organization has faced since its inception.
Funding challenges?
How about levying taxes on the platitude of foreign mining companies that siphon billions of dollars each year from the continent? How about levying taxes on the multitude of Multinational Corporations operating inside Africa for basically free and without any accountability to African people and communities? How about protecting African resources and using them to fund sustainable development? How about ridding African government of corruption? How about many other common sense approaches to obtaining money?
And if all else fails, how about dismantling the AU so that they would no longer have to worry about funding an organization that is of no use to African communities?
Somehow in the most warped of minds, the organization’s leaders reckon that by selling this tax to the Heads of State as a levy on imports to fund and operationalize a certain Peace Fund most folks would buy the rap. They claim this money would be used to finance peace and security operations throughout the continent. They hope to collect some 65 million dollars from each of the continent’s five regions per year, increasing this tax collection to some 80 million dollars per region by the year 2020. However, this might just be the beginning. An 80 million dollars tax collection campaign is only enough to finance just 25 percent of the cost of African Union peace support operations. Invariably, the taxes must go up sometime later.
Meanwhile, none of the contracts for peace keeping equipment – to operationalize this Peace Fund – go to African companies. The uniforms, the guns, the bullets, the vehicles, the rations for soldiers and the medicines are all imported into Africa. Essentially, the African Union’s goal to tax the African poor to pay for these items and the operations that come with them is a clear case of robbing poor Peter to pay a gluttonous Paul.
That means taxes are here to haunt the existence of the African again. This time they are not from a central government within the same country. This time, they arise from a phantom organization without the mandate of the African. This time, the African has no stake in its imagination, its formation, its administration. This time, the entity set to collect taxes from fellow Africans is worse than an occupying colonial power. The proposed mandate is a flesh-eating tariff akin to domestic enslavement.
Perhaps I am mistaken, but have we unknowingly formed a continental government for the people of Africa? Have we come to surreptitiously vote a government, a vote that no one outside of the special elite recalls? Can we the people hold the African Union responsible and accountable in case we don’t see our tax currencies at work?
Of course not!
This is solely a tax imposition on an already highly indebted citizenry. Already African nations have incredibly high tax rates that are hurting the poor more than they provide social amenities to ease their pain. This African Union’s organization tax can only add to the prices of basic commodities in African countries and make life even more difficult for the ordinary citizen.
The question that many interested folks have asked is: why the absence of referendums in Africa on such important matters? Wouldn’t it be more expedient to bring such decisions to national parliaments where they can be subjected to popular votes?
Obviously referendums and voting by the people would provide fairness and actual democracy to the process. But as a rag-thug organization, as a collection of shaitans, coons and reprobates, the African Union knows only one place to seek rent: from the people. So the ordinary citizens of Africa must submit to their unelected heads and dish out a 0.2 percent import tax to satisfy the lazy whims and caprices of an organization without legs for the good, but with hooves for the ugly.
Of course not! Do not be fooled, hoodwinked, or bamboozled. What the African Union proposes is a rent-seeking machination of neo-imperialism.
The size of this monstrosity that is calling itself the African Union stretches into nightmarish territory, reaching perilously far beyond what it is mandated to do. If it is not stopped, if this monster is not checked, tracked, caught and killed, it will escape and wreak havoc of enlightening chaos upon the poor of Africa.
The African Union is not working in the interest of African people. It is an organization worth routing out. Long after they were imagined, Nkrumah’s dreams have since morphed into a Frankenstein organization. Clearly this is an organization overtaken by western special interests. Its ideas are capitalist and neoliberal at best. There’s absolutely nothing to write home to grandmother about the collection of buffoons, demons and anti-African elitists that call themselves the African Union.
The AU is an organization that is now reaching far beyond its calling; it is a leadership without portfolio; it is a union without a mandate; it is a makeshift government without a referendum to back it; it is a dictatorship. If it is not reigned in; if it is allowed to grow – and taxation of the African poor is the way it will accomplish this – it will breed and it will morph into an atrocious anathema to our freedoms. Africa cannot allow another horrendous chapter in her illustrious history, no matter how torrid.
An AU reaching far and wide into the lives of individual Africans by the way of taxation, is beyond its calling; it spells a coup de grace for the continent. It must be disbanded and the foul ideas banished. The AU shaitans must be rooted out before they kill all of us!
Here’s Narmer’s riveting reaction to the AU’s new Peace Fund tax – a 0.2 percent import tax across the continent.
Myself, I don’t know exactly what to make of it. Part of me would like to see a formidable AU fully fund itself and ensure peace everywhere across the continent. Another part of me abhors taxation without representation. Here lies the conundrum.
Narmer makes the point that such a tax should not be levied from the auspices of the AU. If the ordinary African, who is saddled with this new tax, is not directly and fully represented at the AU parliament, how can such a law be passed to burden his/her daily existence? This essay also points to the unnerving direction that the power to tax is essentially the power to destroy.
In any case, this is an engrossing debate that makes the case that we must be careful what powers we grant such an organization as the AU.
I wholly support this line of argument , so far this body has proved to be very impotent in addressing issues, the tax is just another avenue burdern and to spend.
Many international organizations fund their programs by taxation. N.A.T.O. funds itself by nations that participate (as example). The United States of America participates in N.A.T.O. military programs and therefore pays heavily. There are some who angrily criticize the current Obama government for footing the so called bills for N.A.T.O. Organization of nations for a specific or common need represents some level of power in today’s reality. If not the African Union there will be some other way of bringing African nations together, something that will replace the African Union. But to simply suppose that it can fund itself without some financial structure is unrealistic.
No wonder our AU leaders still have the 18 th century mentality for 21 st century world.
What are the accountability measures put in place,how do we hold this fund managers accountable to even ensure that this fund doesn’t become a per diem drawing fund, the biggest problem facing the continent is corruption and lack of economic opportunities, those are issues that needs addressing, economic opportunity is a vehicle for stabilization and growth.
Kobby, you have said it all
We must at all costs prevent the AU from becoming a tax collection and tax administration agency. If we allow it, that is the first step towards destruction. This is how the Jewish Banks get you. This is how the swoop in like locust to loot and destroy through the Iron clad American Military Industrial Complex and their Financial Institutions.
Please, let us make it clear to that Organization that the AU is not mandated by the people to collect taxes!
I like Narmer’s passion and his fervor for laying out his mind without fear of retribution. I like that he doesn’t mind debate, passionate debate.
So here is some: If we want a powerful Union, taxation might be inevitable. We must find a way to do this more accountably and more responsibly. That probably requires a referendum in member states and even as far as Traditional States.
That said the way and manner in which the AU should have gone about this is a tad bit notorious. I have said, I will jump off the wagon that is African Unity if I come to understand that it has been usurped for the intrepid machinations of western special interests.
All of a sudden, shortly after Brexit, the AU passes a Universal passport without a referendum. And then now a universal tax without a referendum. What in the hell? All one can construe from the sudden moves is an external hand in the making of a Union by force – a union by hook or by crook. All of a sudden, even Morocco, a ridiculous nation in Africa without Africans also want to join the African Union.
I gather that there is no place for a continental One Government in Addis Ababa. No one should accept tax laws from the AU. Hell, the organization cannot even get rid of Boko Haram, they cannot fund their own Headquarters with the many resources at hand but they want to now morph into a tax collection agency? Absolutely not!
I can’t stop laughing Dade Afre Akufu
They already have levies and contributions from member states , what have they done with those monies, besides the referendum thing is also subjective.
You are right. There should never be a case made for the AU to become a tax collecting agency. How? This thing must stop right here!
This levies and contributions has been going on for years yet they were not even able to build their own headquarters,lets think about that guy’s.
My friend Kobby Asamoah, the forces at work are larger than what we think. Since Brexit, the One World Government elites have been feverishly working to seize Africa, and that is the AU for their experiments. We must stop it!
The race for Africa and its resources has been going on for decades with the chinese leading the onslaught with soft loans radio establishment and american shell companies leading the way and also bodies such as imf world bank .
The leaders of our nations don’t have the integrity to impose such a tax
When Dos Santos and his ‘self made ‘ billionaire daughter Isabella alone can fund it from their filthy pockets !!
That may clean them up slightly
That includes Obiang from Equatorial Guinea too
These character are going to send representatives to vote on a tax to impose on the masses ?When these leaders through their machinations foment the wars and so on ???
Naaniama !!
I see that the Americans want to turn the African Union into a Third World Internal Revenue Service to fund their Operations in Africa. When you allow someone to dock its Military Industrial Complex on your land, how the hell do you think he’s going to fund it? Let me make this a little simpler: The USACOMMAND in Africa needs Money to fund their operations in Africa. America itself is loosing money. They are in serious debt! They must find new cash flows! Africa is next.
So, while we concentrate on building Africa, they are thinking about destroying it. Or at the very least having complete control over it. They need to transform the AU into a Tax Collection Agency in order to fund the escapades in Africa.
When I told you AFRICOM was the beginning of clandestine troubles in Africa, people acted like they couldn’t see. My friends, brace yourselves. You thought slavery was bad? You haven’t seen anything yet!
It was obvious from day one .We act and they think we’re idiots.
I told my fellow Africans that the USA cannot fund 52 and going on to 54 Military bases in Africa. It will turn to a brutal exploitation to do it. No one believed me. People on this continent have peanut brains, really!
hahahahaha “Third World internal revenue service”. Lol???
This is another humongous bureaucracy being fostered on us. What systems have been put in place to ensure efficient use of these monies?
No system unfortunately…. Checks and balances are conspicuously absent
So let’s say Burundi for example who’s leader is obviously not the people’s wish, will use his illegal and illegitimate occupation of that position to fund the fight against any other person who has the intention of coming to power the same way. It like telling a piglet to grow into a fully blown adult pig without a long mouth. These clowns continue to be divided on important territories like Western Sahara and Islands on lake Victoria disputed by Uganda Kenya and Tanzania. If fights should break out here, how are they going to interviene? They are also known to be sop porters of Al Bashir. If he starts gassing people in dafur, are they going to elongate him? The list is long.
The debate is perfectly executed and argued such that I have nothing to add-up to the master piece.
The logic conclusion is that, we can not pay for such a mafia tax programme as the masses. Period!!!
We will revolt it, for warn is to for arm. Those with ears should hear.
I was just trying to make sense of how this could play out and how stupid the logic and practice could end up becoming.
What do you think? Audu Salisu.
They lack credibility-after giving each other free access to each other’s country with the African passport, country in case they’re overthrown .Watching each other on the back -‘brothers in theft ‘syndrome
One of my best loved Pan-Afrikan Revolutionary Griot-Warriors, Amenuti Narmer, has once again excellently spoken my own mind and heart out boldly with the characteristic Truthquest daring of what Walter Rodney aptly called a “Guerrilla Intellectual”! Let us all study very diligently this latest work of Brother Amenuti engaged in what we of the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE) call “Speaking Our Grassroots Power of Truth To Establishment Power (SOGPOTTEP)”!
@solomon Azumah-Gomez as @kari Bannerman said, this pasport and free movement could also work against the tax. I think this is obviously not well thought through. You see African leadership has a habit of being spontaneously creative and innovative whenever they demand something from their neoliberal bankrollers and the latter turn them down for whatever reason. It’s messy in Brussels right now and Obama insulted them last year by telling them to stop changing constitutions to stay longer. Obviously the black presidency of US has not brought them whatever they expected. So this may well be the classical European teenage rebellion against its parents. The kind where the father bankrolls everything from latest iPad to dinner with new girlfriend and if finances are weak and the father tries to explain, the teenager threatens to move to North Pole to make their own money when everybody know he or she can’t even wipe his or her own ass.
The name is Obama not O’hara. He has no slave lineage. He is not buying anybody or anything. He is not selling anybody either. This is the 21st century and Africa is free of colonial rule. Any country can write or re-write the nation’s constitution. In fact the United States constitution adds amendments to address every social contradiction with it’s economy, as far back as slavery. So the country I live in has no real right to advise another democracy on what to do with it’s constitution. Democracy in the United States of America depends on it’s constitution to address everything including gay marriage, women in the military, gay people in the military, the right of women to abort pregnancy these are only a few of the most important social issues that the constitution is used to interpret. And without that power the economy here would suffer greatly. Obama is the first black man to be the president of the United States however he will never replace the powerful white owner’s of American production. He can not tell the African states anything especially now that his government is threatened by white supremist philosophy in the opposing party platform.
Chi Wen Tzu always thought three times before taking action. Twice would have been quite enough.
– Confucius