Africa-Press – Sierra-Leone. The Budget Advocacy Network (BAN) has urged urgent reforms to the international tax system, warning that current global rules deprive resource-rich countries like Sierra Leone of vital revenues needed for public services.
It made this in a press statement dated Monday November 10, 2025, marking the beginning date for negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, BAN stated that multinational profit shifting, weak tax treaties, and outdated tax norms are costing Sierra Leone billions in potential income.
According to BAN, under existing arrangements, taxing rights are largely granted to countries where corporations are headquartered, rather than where minerals are extracted.
“When our natural resources are extracted, the wealth generated should benefit the people of Sierra Leone first. Yet current tax rules allow multinational companies to move profits abroad, while our communities live beside abandoned mining pits, poor roads, and underfunded hospitals and schools. This is not development; it is exploitation,” said Abu Bakar Kamara BAN Coordinator.
BAN called for four key reforms in the UN tax negotiations, including taxing resource profits at the point of extraction, not in foreign financial centers; adopting unitary taxation with formulary apportionment, treating multinational groups as single firms and allocating profits based on real activity in Sierra Leone; replacing outdated bilateral tax treaties with a transparent, multilateral framework that safeguards developing countries’ revenues; and ensuring civil society participation and transparency in tax policy and negotiations.
The network stressed that fair taxation is essential for Sierra Leone’s national development goals, reducing inequality, and ensuring resource wealth benefits citizens rather than foreign shareholders.
“Tax justice is not a technical issue – it is a matter of fairness, dignity, and sovereignty. Sierra Leone must not continue to export wealth while its people live in poverty,” it reads in part.
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