Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson has urged African governments and regional institutions to strengthen tax cooperation to protect domestic revenue and secure the continent’s development financing needs.
He said African countries must have a stronger voice in the international tax architecture and coordinate their positions more effectively on emerging global tax issues.
The Minister gave the advice in a speech read for him by Mr Kweku George Ricketts-Hagan, Board Chairman of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) at the opening of the 8th High-Level Policy Dialogue and 23rd General Assembly of the West African Tax Administration Forum (WATAF) in Accra.
The meeting, co-hosted by the GRA and WATAF, was on the theme: “Building Stronger Tax Administrations for Revenue Mobilisation and Sustainable Development.
Dr Forson said regional institutions should strengthen the capacity of member tax administrations to implement international tax standards.
He said such institutions should also equip African countries to negotiate effectively and protect their legitimate tax bases in the changing international tax environment.
He identified issues including base erosion and profit shifting, taxation of the digital economy and the global minimum tax as matters that had become central to Africa’s development agenda.
The Minister said tax administrations could no longer operate as isolated institutions because businesses were increasingly structuring their operations across jurisdictions while capital moved rapidly across borders.
He, therefore, urged African tax administrations to strengthen mechanisms for sharing taxpayer intelligence, identifying cross-border tax risks and learning from successful compliance interventions.
He said regional cooperation should provide a stronger tax backbone for African countries and enable them to respond collectively to emerging challenges in international taxation.
The Minister also called for greater investment in African expertise, saying the continent should reduce excessive dependence on external technical capacity and build stronger indigenous tax administration capabilities.
He said revenue mobilisation must also be accompanied by efforts to address illicit financial flows, tax evasion, trade under-invoicing, smuggling and other activities that resulted in revenue leakages.
He urged governments and regional bodies to embrace data, digital transformation, cross-border cooperation and professional development to build stronger, smarter and more sustainable tax administrations capable of financing development.
Mr Anthony Kwasi Sarpong, Commissioner-General of GRA said African countries needed to mobilise their own domestic resources fairly, efficiently and sustainably to address development financing challenges.
He said West Africa recorded real GDP growth of 4.8 per cent in 2025, with growth projected at 4.6 per cent in 2026, but the region continued to face a significant development financing gap.
He urged tax administrations to broaden the tax base, formalise informal economic activities, improve the management of natural-resource revenues and strengthen information exchange among jurisdictions.
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