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Dr Ruth Labode

Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
GOVERNMENT should start taxing churches as this could raise enough money to fund the health sector, Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care chairperson Dr Ruth Labode has said.

The call comes at a time when the National Aids Council (Nac) is considering levying nightclubs and the informal sector to augment the Aids levy.

The organisation is seeking ways of generating domestic finance to support the national response to HIV.

Increasing concern that if donors were to pull out, the country’s HIV response would be heavily compromised, prompted the move.

Dr Labode told a panel discussion chaired by Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa in Victoria Falls last week, that time had come to stop exempting churches from paying tax.

“We should start engaging mega churches and propose a presumptive tax. We really should introduce a tax on airtime dealers. That way we know we will be capturing the informal sector because they do their business on the phone,” said Dr Labode.

She suggested that the presumptive tax would not be fixed as churches would be contributing according to their earnings. Dr Labode said the government could consider offering incentives to the churches so they pay the tax.

“We can dangle carrots, say remove tax when they import cars or musical instruments. We have many mega churches and something can be realised from them,” she added.

Another participant agreed with Dr Labode saying country’s like Nigeria and Zambia had already implemented such tax regimes.

Nac has reportedly done feasibility studies on introduction of tax on the informal sector.

Government through Nac collects Aids levy, which is three percent of Pay as You Earn from the formally employed population, and the same percentage from corporate tax.

If the proposals sail through, informal traders will be expected to have a fraction of their operating licence fees levied and remitted to the council.

The same would also apply to vendors and other players in the informal sector when they apply for operating licences from local authorities.

The African Union has compelled member states to consider domestic financing of health programmes because donor funding is dwindling.

AU Commissioner for Social Services Dr Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko who is in the country for today’s World Aids Day commemorations at Elephant Hills Golf Course in Victoria Falls said time had come for Africa to be self-reliant as aid was not sustainable.