Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary
The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) central committee are meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office to discuss the future of the front as of yesterday, Saturday November 16. The meeting is expected to continue today Sunday November 17, and outcomes will be likely announced.
Only one party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in the four-member ruling coalition is currently opposed to plans to unify the bloc into one national party. (Picture EPRDF)
Regions prepare to reap tax benefit
A committee has been formed to implement the House of Federation’s decision to distribute tax revenue to the regions on businesses that do have branch offices in regions and hedquartered in Addis. The House recently decided about how to fairly distribute and calculate tax revenue between the federal government and regions.
In a major change now when a company has a branch office in a certain region, the branch’s tax revenue will go to that region. Previously when companies were registered and based in places like Addis Ababa or Dire Dawa, even if they had branches in other regions, the tax revenue would go to the federal government.
For example, if a bank had a branch in Hawassa but was headquartered in Addis Ababa, the tax revenue would go to the federal government but now tax revenue from that specific branch in Hawassa would go to the SNNP region.
Speaker of the House of Federation Keriya Ibrahim sent a letter to the Ministry of Revenue (MoR) to implement the House’s decision.
The letter was issued on July 5 and signed by the House Speaker. It indicated that the calculation should be applied by the coming budget year, 2020/21.
According to the information Capital secured from the Ministry of Revenue (MoR), to implement the House of Federation decision, a committee comprised of the MoR, Ministry of Finance and House of Federation was recently formed.
Mohammed Haso, Chair of the committee and Tax Harmony and Regions Support head at MoR, told Capital that the committee will undertake a study for the implementation of the decision and it would be discussed between regions.
Experts said that there are several companies based in Addis Ababa but that have businesses in different regions for a short time like contract work.
“The companies generate revenue with their short or long term businesses by their branch offices but the tax that might be profit or other taxes is given to the federal government,” tax experts explained.
Mohammed explained that there are companies like financial firms, construction companies and several big companies that have branches in regions.
“The committee would finalize the study and proposal for the implementation of the House decision by the coming budget year,” he added.
He said that the initial proposal would be finalized by May next year and stakeholders will discuss the matter after that.
“The main work would be identifying the system that might be applied for the way to calculate regional revenue portions from these types of companies. Directives to implement the decision from the House of Federation would be changed or improved,” the committee chair added.
Based on the current tax distribution calculation of federal government and regions, the income tax would be distributed equally with regions, for indirect tax (VAT, excise tax, and sales tax regions shall get 30 percent, and regions shall get 50 percent of dividend tax from shareholders on the investments in regions. The calculation is approved by the House of Federation. But the calculation will be revised as of the coming budget year. Based on its decision at the meeting held July 5 the tax distribution calculation for regions is readjusted as follows; profit tax 50 percent, income (salary) tax 100 percent, indirect tax (VAT, sales and excise tax) 50 percent, and shareholders’ profit tax 50 percent.
Ethiopia less peaceful in 2019 report says
Ethiopia fell six spots on the Global Peace Index (GPI) 2019 report ranking 131st out of 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness.
This is a further decline from Ethiopia’s ranking of 119th in 2016.
Sadly, this year only 86 countries have become more peaceful. This is the 13th edition of the GPI and the tenth in a row. It is published by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).
The GPI report uses three categories to base its evaluation. These include: ongoing domestic and International Conflict, Societal Safety and Security; and Militarization.
The Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict Domain is determined by indicators, such as internal and external conflicts and their duration, whereas the Societal Safety and Security Domain is compiled from indicators that include crime rates, terrorist activities and violent demonstrations, unstable political scenes and internally displaced people, or made refugees.
The Militarization Domain refers to the link between a country’s military build-up and civilian access to weapons and its level of peacefulness domestically and internationally.
It is poignant that for most Ethiopians these indicators seem to be very familiar features of the current Ethiopian political scene.
Sub-Sahara Africa, which consists of 44 countries in the index, saw its regional ranking remained unchanged; Ethiopia was ranked the 33rd peaceful country in Sub-Sahara Africa, only slightly better than Mali, Central African Republic, DRC, Somalia and South Sudan in 2019.
These include lack of peace, societal safety and security; political instability; militarization and mob rule; crime and lawlessness and ethnic targeted persecutions, rise of armed mobs and criminal activities; the common occurrences of ethnic targeting.
A long time politician Kinfemikaeal Abebe (Abebe Kesto) is not surprised about the rank and seems optimistic about the prevalence of peace in the country. However, he stressed “the need to ensure the rule of law by taking actions against those unlawfully organized mob attackers.”
The report reveals that an estimated 971 million people live in areas with high or very high climate change exposure. Of this number, 400 million (41 percent) reside in countries which already have low levels of peacefulness. Climate change can indirectly increase the likelihood of violent conflict through its impacts on resource availability, livelihood, security and migration.
In order to address these challenges, there will need to be much greater cooperation both within and between countries. Countries with high levels of Positive Peace attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies are better able to manage climate-induced shocks and tend to have higher environmental performance than those with lower levels of Positive Peace.
The five largest improvements in peace included; Ukraine, Sudan, Egypt, North Macedonia and Rwanda.
The Global Peace Index 2019 report finds that the average level of global peacefulness improved very slightly in the 2019 GPI, for the first time in five years. The 2019 GPI reveals a world in which the conflicts and crises that emerged in the past decade have begun to abate, but new tensions within and between nations have emerged.
Improvements in Ongoing Conflict scores were recorded in five sub-Saharan African countries.
“In Ethiopia, deaths from internal conflict and internal conflicts fought improved even while external conflicts escalated,” the report indicates.
Twenty-seven of the region’s 44 countries deteriorated in peacefulness, leading to a weakening of all three domains of the GPI, while 12 of the region’s 23 indicators improved and eight deteriorated.
