With a president cultivating a no-nonsense reputation and an economy set to be supercharged, Tanzania is making sure its voice is heard throughout the region.
You are on holiday. Perhaps in Kenya’s Maasai Mara game reserve. The thought occurs: How about crossing to the world-famous Serengeti, on the Tanzanian side? Foiled … The switch won’t be easy, requiring a five-hour detour, another visa and a new set of immigration rules.
For nearly four decades now, Tanzania has maintained a blockade of Bologonja, a border crossing between the Maasai Mara and Serengeti. It claims access for mass tourism could harm the ecosystem of the world heritage site, which “harbors the largest remaining unaltered animal migration in the world,” according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
But ever keen to do business and tap its tourism potential, Kenya sees this differently. It argues that its southern neighbor is out to make business unsustainable for Kenyan tour operators who ferry curious visitors eager to witness wildebeests on the march.
What you are witnessing are age-old rivalries, so bitter they have defied a wave of economic integration slowly sweeping across the continent.
And they are just two of many regional disputes involving Tanzania that have earned the country a reputation as a spiky neighbor.
Voicing a popular view, Uganda’s minister for general duties Tarsis Kabwegyere said in February on a television talk show: “The political class in Tanzania is not yet attuned to regional integration.”
‘Coalition of the willing’
During March 2016 talks with Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, he and Tanzania’s President John Magufuli agreed to form a joint ministerial commission to resolve outstanding issues related to the Maasai Mara-Serengeti conflict. Yet Tanzanian foreign minister Augustine Mahiga, who was selected to chair the commission, has not held a meeting since. “Tanzania is looking beyond traditional tourism,” says Mahiga.
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South Africa asks World Bank to review ease-of-doing-business position in light of InvestSA initiative
The South African government has officially launched a new investment facilitation service, dubbed InvestSA, which it claims will dramatically reduce red tape for foreign and domestic businesses seeking to pursue greenfield or brownfield projects in the country.
The service, which has both physical and virtual dimensions, is punted as a one-stop shop facility, bringing under one umbrella the various government departments and agencies investors deal with to secure the permits, licences and incentives required to facilitate their investments.
The national office, located at the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI’s) Pretoria Campus, was officially inaugurated by President Jacob Zuma on Friday, with three provincial offices to be rolled out in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Nataland the Western Cape later this year.
Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies says the one-stop shop was conceived together with the Presidential Business Working Group in 2015 and is a direct response to ongoing appeals from business for government to streamline the bureaucracy associated with investing in the country.
Besides the DTI, the national one-stop shop will house senior officials from the departments of Home Affairs, Labour and Environmental Affairs, as well as Eskom, the South African Revenue Service and the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission.
It will offer specialist advisory services to investors relating to South Africa’s economic, regulatory and legislative environment, while also showcasing the industrial financing incentives available.
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South African working in Dubai worried stiff over new tax plans
A South African working in Dubai is disturbed by a proposal that could subject him to paying tax back home. He writes:
“I’m a South African living in Dubai and the new proposal on taxing those of us who live abroad in countries where we are not taxed on our income has us all very worried.”
The Fin24 user is referring to the 183 day rule that exempts remuneration earned by any person (resident or non-resident) for services rendered for and on behalf of an employer.
In this regard, if the individual spends a period of 61 continuous days and an aggregate 184 days outside South Africa, the remuneration derives for services rendered outside South Africa will not be taxable in South Africa.
However, Dubai, which attracts South Africans, is a non-tax jurisdiction so South Africans working there will not pay any taxes. The government is now trying to plug this loophole in order to get South Africans in countries like Dubai to pay taxes back home.
I think you have good reason to be concerned. In essence, the exemption will be removed, thereby leaving South Africans subject to full SA taxation, with no credits because no local taxes otherwise apply.
However, there may be one important escape. South Africa cannot tax you unless either:
(i) you are a SA common-law tax resident (i.e. you view SA as your eventual home), or
(ii) you reside in SA for any significant period of time during the relevant tax year (i.e. are an SA tax resident by virtue of the days test)
The law still needs to be drafted in this regard, so the proposal is not yet effective. I recommend that SA residents working abroad obtain tax advice when the proposal finds its way into law.
Treasury told Fin24 draft legislation on the proposed tax will be published later in the year for further consultation.
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Tanzania’s power play
With a president cultivating a no-nonsense reputation and an economy set to be supercharged, Tanzania is making sure its voice is heard throughout the region.
You are on holiday. Perhaps in Kenya’s Maasai Mara game reserve. The thought occurs: How about crossing to the world-famous Serengeti, on the Tanzanian side? Foiled … The switch won’t be easy, requiring a five-hour detour, another visa and a new set of immigration rules.
For nearly four decades now, Tanzania has maintained a blockade of Bologonja, a border crossing between the Maasai Mara and Serengeti. It claims access for mass tourism could harm the ecosystem of the world heritage site, which “harbors the largest remaining unaltered animal migration in the world,” according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
But ever keen to do business and tap its tourism potential, Kenya sees this differently. It argues that its southern neighbor is out to make business unsustainable for Kenyan tour operators who ferry curious visitors eager to witness wildebeests on the march.
What you are witnessing are age-old rivalries, so bitter they have defied a wave of economic integration slowly sweeping across the continent.
And they are just two of many regional disputes involving Tanzania that have earned the country a reputation as a spiky neighbor.
Voicing a popular view, Uganda’s minister for general duties Tarsis Kabwegyere said in February on a television talk show: “The political class in Tanzania is not yet attuned to regional integration.”
‘Coalition of the willing’
During March 2016 talks with Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, he and Tanzania’s President John Magufuli agreed to form a joint ministerial commission to resolve outstanding issues related to the Maasai Mara-Serengeti conflict. Yet Tanzanian foreign minister Augustine Mahiga, who was selected to chair the commission, has not held a meeting since. “Tanzania is looking beyond traditional tourism,” says Mahiga.
Source
NIGERIA | Pro-Business Plan Expands Visa-on-Arrival and Permissible Business Activities
NIGERIA | Pro-Business Plan Expands Visa-on-Arrival and Permissible Business Activities
As part of Nigeria’s recently announced 60-day action plan to improve its international business climate, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has announced the expansion of its visa-on-arrival scheme to accommodate business travelers whose home countries have no Nigerian consular post. Traditionally, business visas are applied for through the Nigerian overseas missions; but in cases where the applicant resides in a country with no Nigerian consular post, the process of applying through a Nigerian consulate in a neighboring country can prove to be expensive and inconvenient.
Effective immediately, the NIS has made visas-on-arrival available to “frequently travelled business persons of international repute” and “executives of multi-national companies” from countries with no Nigerian consular post. Those foreign nationals may apply for visas-on-arrival, valid for a single 14-day stay, at the port of entry. While the visas are issued upon arrival, applicants must arrive already holding a “visa on arrival approval letter” obtained for them by an in-country sponsor. According to the NIS website, requests for the required approval letters will be processed within two working days.
Also, to further accommodate business travelers to Nigeria, the NIS has expanded the definition of business activity permitted under the traditional 90-day business visas issued by the Nigerian overseas missions, as well as the new visas-on-arrival. The list of permissible business activities – in addition to the traditional attendance at meetings, conferences, and seminars – now includes negotiating contracts, sales activities, job interviews, training and research, purchasing and distributing Nigerian goods, attending trade fairs, and emergency or relief work.
Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria is currently in its fourth consecutive quarter of recession, posting a 2.2 percent GDP contraction in the final quarter of 2016. While the slow-down is primarily due to the softening oil market, which is expected to rebound somewhat in 2017, economists have warned that significant government policy reform is sorely needed to restore consumer and business confidence and steer the economy back to growth. Hopefully, the current 60-day action plan and these corporate mobility improvements are just the start of more needed pro-business reforms.