BAN Calls for Fair Global Tax Rules

BAN warns that the current global tax system unfairly disadvantages resource-rich countries like Sierra Leone, causing major revenue losses that could support essential public services such as health, education, and infrastructure.

Despite its rich mineral resources, Sierra Leone continues to lose huge income due to multinational profit shifting, weak tax treaties, and outdated international tax norms.

Most taxing rights, BAN notes, are given to the countries where multinational companies are based, not where the minerals are extracted.

“When our natural resources are extracted, the wealth generated should benefit the people of Sierra Leone first,” said BAN Coordinator, Abu Bakarr Kamara.

“But 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.”

BAN is calling for resource profits to be taxed where extraction occurs, multinational companies to be treated as single global entities with profits shared based on real activity, outdated bilateral tax treaties to be replaced with a transparent multilateral framework that protects developing countries, and for civil society participation and transparency to be included in tax policy discussions.

The organization stressed that fair taxation is key to national development and reducing inequality, ensuring that resource wealth benefits citizens rather than foreign shareholders.

“Tax justice is not just technical, it’s about fairness, dignity, and sovereignty. Sierra Leone must not continue to export wealth while its people remain in poverty,” BAN ended.