Africa-Press – Angola. At least 32 companies closed their activities in the province of Moxico, in 2023, due to lack of liquidity, said this Tuesday the president of the Moxico Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Agrione Manuel.
Speaking about the state of the sector in the province, he said that the difficulty in complying with tax obligations, the high debt incurred by State institutions are the main reasons for the closure of the aforementioned companies, which mostly operate in the areas of service provision and trade, reducing the employment rate in the region.
According to the person responsible, the rate of Industrial Tax currently charged, situated at 25 percent, remains high and out of adjustment with the business reality in Moxico, taking into account its geographical location, a region that is more than 1,200 kilometers away from Luanda, considered the country’s largest economic center.
To resolve the difficulties faced by the business class in this region of the country, he advocates a review of the current industrial tax rate, which in his view would be below 20 percent.
Agrione Manuel also requested greater sensitivity and caution in the application of fines to companies, by the General Tax Administration (AGT), justifying that the delay in settling the debt of State institutions has made it difficult to regularly comply with tax obligations.
Recently, the Minister of Finance, Vera Daves, informed, in Luena, that provincial Governments and Municipal Administrations will begin to settle debts contracted by the State in the period 2020-2023, in the provision of services.
According to the governor, the aforementioned commitments will be honored from this year (2024), with the current budget that these budgetary units benefit from.
As for the commitments assumed by the State in the period 2013-2019, through the provision of services, the budgetary units, in this case the Provincial Governments and Municipal Administrations, must recognize the existence of the debt and upload it to the system, to be certified by the General Inspectorate of Administration of the State (IGAE), according to the minister.
Poor management in the main cause of business bankruptcy
A study by the Instituto Superior Politécnico Privado Walinga, points to poor management in the private business sector as the main cause of the bankruptcy of several economic organizations in the province of Moxico.
Along with the poor internal management of companies, with 64.7 percent, the lack of innovation, with a representation of 17.6 percent, is the second cause of bankruptcy for many local companies, according to the aforementioned study.
The aforementioned research points out that the result of a questionnaire applied to accountants in the region also points to the lack of financing, the economic crisis, as well as the insertion in a stagnant economic sector, as the other causes of the bankruptcy of companies with 5.9 percent each of influence.
The province of Moxico has more than one million inhabitants, according to projections by the National Statistics Institute (INE), during the 2014 Population Census.
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