Marta's story
Marta Luttgrodt sells beer and snacks in a street stall in the shadow of the Accra Brewery. A bottle of Accra Brewery's Club beer costs $1.20 (Gh ¢2) at Marta's store and in a month she makes around $340 (Gh ¢500). She and her three employees work hard for this success, starting at 6:30am every day and finishing at 8pm.
Marta pays her income taxes of about $58 a year (Gh ¢105) and keeps her books up to date. Her business makes just enough money to support her family, but she pays more tax than her neighbour and supplier, SABMiller. Looming behind her, the Accra Brewery has paid no income tax in the past two years.
"Wow. I don't believe it," says Marta. "We small businesses are suffering from the authorities. If we don't pay, they come with a padlock."
Marta's surprise is justified.
SABMiller is the world's second biggest brewer. This year alone they've pumped out an island-floating 21 billion litres of beer, with an AUD19 billion turnover. But over the last two years, they haven't paid one Ghanaian Cedi of corporate income tax to the Ghana government from their Accra brewery.
Not one Cedi, even though they control more than one third of the country's beer market, with Ghanaians pouring over $103 million into the company's coffers since 2007.
SABMiller would post much larger profits if it didn't use tax havens - bigger profits mean more tax. They actually made a loss in their Ghanaian operations last year. SABMiller's expert tax dodging across six developing country operations has seen them avoid paying an estimated $32 million.
Marta slogs away daily serving cold beers and food to SABMiller employees, who also work long hours. Marta and her fellow Ghanaians pay their taxes so their country doesn'tneed foreign aid to pay for the fabric of life – schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. Yet a multinational giant like SABMiller makes megabucks, and gets a free ride.
Come on SABMiller, it's time to pay up!
>> Tell SABMiller to stop dodging tax in developing countries
