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Rwanda: Women Discuss Paying Taxes
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Focus Media (Kigali)
26 March 2008
Posted to the web 26 March 2008
Steve Rukundo
Women entrepreneurs and business women last week held a meeting to discuss obstacles faced by women in their activities towards development, particularly concerning taxes.
The meeting, which was presided over by the Rwanda Revenue Authority commissioner general Mary Baine, focused on issues concerning the payment of taxes for national development, since only a small proportion of entrepreneurs comply with tax regulations.
"Women still face a problem of not even knowing their rights as tax payers," Mary Baine remarked. "This is also a problem that leads to many women not being involved in the commercial activities."
Women should learn to be more productive, the commissioner general pointed out. Often, they are engaged in agri-business such as growing flowers and fruits, and they should learn to improve on quality and quantity by the use of technology.
"Women also still lack the knowledge of using banks for financial support, through loans or savings which could help expand their businesses," Baine said.
Women should also take advantage of the integration of Rwanda in the East African Community, which gives the country access to a much bigger market.
Also present at the meeting was the Minister of commerce, Monique Nsanzabaganwa, who exhorted women to be more innovative. She further pointed out that consultative process like these give the ministry a lot of experience, and they will learn a lot from them.
"This year's theme for the International Women's Day was 'Women in development', which is one of the reasons why this first consultative meeting was held. This is will be an on going process," she added.
During the meeting, women also expressed their ideas on the challenges they meet as entrepreneurs. "We have a problem of people who don't register their business in order to avoid taxes," one participant only identified as Jeanette said. "So you find that the majority of businesses are informal, which gives them an advantage."
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She also complained about the quality of products made by some enterprises. "The bureau of standards should enforce measures on business people who produce sub-standard commodities," she said.
Another business woman, Ida Gasinzigwa, noted that, "the number of women bidding for government tenders is still very low. Also, women often miss information due to a lack of education".
Women participating in the meeting also reported cases of abuse of office by the staff of the Revenue Authority, which also makes it hard for them to work in hand with the authorities in commercial activities.
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