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Tax justice advocates and experts have cautioned against an emerging tax injustice trend in Africa, including Ghana, where workers and essential services are increasingly being taxed whereas multinationals, particularly mining conglomerates, are let off the hook. The trend has been that from Accra through Ouagadougou, Niamey, and Nouakchott to Lagos and Yaounde, the tax burden of West Africa's indigenous workers has been steadily rising whereas that of multinationals has been decreasing. "Workers are taxed more than corporations...The state prefers collecting more taxes from citizens than from industries in sectors like extractives," said Ali Idrissa, a Nigerien participant at a West African Tax Justice Seminar which came off in the Dangme West District capital, Dodowa, near Accra from October 28 to 30. It was organized by the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), Christian Aid (UK) and Tax Justice Network-Africa under the theme Tax and Democracy - No Representation without Taxation. Lower corporate taxes, free zone packages, and special exemptions like longer periods of loss carry-forward are used by countries as they compete for foreign direct investments (FDIs). However, tax holidays appear the most worrisome incentive because they are "generally believed to create greater risks of abuse and attract less desirable forms of investment than other types of incentives," according to Wilson Prichard, author of Taxation and Development in Ghana: Finance, Equity and Accountability. Tax incentives, including tax holidays per se, are not bad. However, their discriminatory nature and the extent to which they create imbalances have often come under criticism. Governments often fall on consumption and individual income taxes to address shortfalls created by the incentive offers. Thus mostly, governments would increase individual and consumption tax rates rather than widen tax bases and tax corporations. In the opinion of tax justice advocates, the trend portrays an injustice in taxation. They draw attention to many instances where national experiences and researches have pointed to the fact that tax incentives are only a microcosm of the factors that drive FDIs. A case in point is what happens in the Ireland. Dr David McNair, Senior Economic Justice Advisor, Christian Aid, says Ireland used tax incentives to attract investors and the immediate effect was positive but the long term effect was undesirable. He observed that companies are attracted to an area based on profitability, economic and availability of infrastructure - schools, roads, electricity, hospitals, etc. "These factors matter more than tax." Therefore, governments need to invest in improving infrastructure; when these are done companies would readily pay taxes. Dr McNair believes exempting multinational companies from taxes is unhelpful from both a justice and economic development perspective. Many a participant at the seminar was very concerned at the amount of tax money that countries, such as Ghana, were losing to multinationals. Executive Secretary of the Ghana Integrity Initiative, Mr. Vitus A. Azeem, expressed concern about the quantum of incentives. For him, the real issues for governments should be putting in place the requisite regulatory frameworks, making the processing of documents easy, ensuring non-interference of politics in business issues, facilitating importation of raw materials, etc. According to Professor Ademola Ariyo, Department of Economics of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, the concept of incentives on the one hand is based on ignorance about the negative aspects of tax incentives. He stated that "There is no correlation between character of tax incentives and foreign direct investments." Another aspect is that there is a "phobia of intimidation." Most investors play on the desperation of African countries for investment and over-exaggerate the risks businesses could be exposed to in many countries. In the mining sector, Mrs. Hannah Owusu-Koranteng of WACAM observed that instead of rebuilding what we have lost, "we are rather subsidizing multinationals to take away our natural resource capital." In addition, land owners subsidize mining companies by giving away land for pittance in return while royalty rates are so low. "As you move closer to mining communities poverty increases," Mrs Owusu-Koranteng pointed out. With countries competing for FDI through tax reductions, "we will get to a point where no company will be taxed," she cautioned. It is apparent that companies decide to fold up once tax holiday periods come to an end. In sum, "It is an unfortunate reality that establishing the overall costs and benefits of a tax incentive regime is extremely difficult," says Prichard.