In order to clamp down on tax evasion, government has initiated a crackdown on Chinese-owned retail outlets that have been operating for years under cash-only policy.
This was by Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Trade and Entrepreneurship, Olesitse Masimega, when a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing this week. He disclosed during today’s PAC that the government has for years been concerned about the policy that the Chinese retail outlets have been operating on.
His revelation came after Member of Parliament for Thamaga-Kumakwane, Palelo Motaosane, probed what the Ministry of Trade and Entrepreneurship intends to do to combat the common trend of cash-only policy.
“There are shops across Gaborone belonging to the Chinese. These shops do not want to swipe at all, and I want to understand what you are doing about this. Don’t you think they are evading tax through this?” Motaosane asked.
The Thamaga legislator stressed that this issue has been on consumers’ lips for years, and no probable action had been initiated against these shops.
“What measures have been put in place to make these people do the right things? We have been complaining about this for the longest time, and no action has been taken against them,” he said.
In response, Masimega said the government too was disturbed by the trends of how Chinese shops conduct business.
“I couldn’t agree with you more; it is really concerning that in this day and era we do have shop operators that still operate on a cash basis only as there are many risks to it,” the concerned Masimega said.
He revealed that Ministry was already probing the issue to put an end to it.
“What I can confirm is that we are in dialogue with Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) under the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to make sure that this type of arrangement is phased out,” Masimega said.
He highlighted that it is imperative for the government to phase out such practices by the Chinese shops because their transactions cannot be traced.
“We cannot determine with certainty whether they are paying tax. You don’t know how much has flowed through their shops, and we are looking into this very urgently,” Masimega said.
Meanwhile, the chairman of PAC Taolo Lucas implored the PS to ensure that this comes to fruition and does not remain only as a task in the pipeline, as the economy is bleeding.
