The Sunday News
THE National Aids Council is considering levying nightclubs and players in the informal sector to augment the Aids levy, as it moves to seek ways of generating more domestic resources to support the national response to HIV, Sunday News has learnt.
An accountant with NAC Mr Alfonse Nengoma told Sunday News on Friday last week on the sidelines of a media workshop in Kadoma, that feasibility studies for the proposal had already been conducted with results expected “any time soon”.
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.
Mr Nengoma said the idea to tap into other sectors to broaden the council’s resource base was born out of concern over the country’s over reliance on resources from external sources for its HIV response programmes.
A National Aids Spending Assessment (NASA) study conducted for 2011 and 2012 showed that of the $314 million spent on HIV and Aids in 2012 only 30 percent was from internal sources, with the remainder coming from donors.
Concern has been that if donors were to pull out, the country’s HIV response would be heavily compromised hence the need to move towards mobilising more internal sources of funding.
If the latest proposal by NAC sails through, operators of nightclubs will be expected to have a fraction of their liquor 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.
“There is a general acknowledgement of the need to generate domestic resources to support the national HIV response. At the moment the Aids levy is being collected from the formal sector yet only 11 percent of the workforce is employed in this sector and 84 percent of those above 15 years are employed in the informal sector.
“On realising this NAC needs to engage the informal sector more meaningfully but of course this has to be done in line with existing laws. Players in the informal sector benefit from the national HIV response programme, so it is a general feeling that they should also meaningfully contribute towards the Aids levy,” said Mr Nengoma.
He added: “We are also looking at nightclubs which operate late to see if it is possible to have them contribute to the Aids levy. Our studies show that this has already been implemented in some countries so we would want to see how it works here. We feel owners of nightclubs and bars should play a role in resource mobilisation because it is at nightclubs where people get drunk and get a bit casual about sex.
“So what we want is that clubs that operate late into the night, part of their licence fees should be deducted towards the Aids levy.”
Mr Nengoma revealed that NAC had engaged local authorities on the proposal and they had shown interest in its implementation but had expressed concern on the issue of accountability.
“Generally, we are in agreement with councils but the sticky area is on how the money will be collected in the event that we implement the proposal. Councils are more comfortable remitting the money directly to us not through any other body. So that’s one area we have to work on first before the proposal comes into effect,” he said.
NAC is also targeting levying airtime recharge vendors, air ticket tax on departing passengers and incorporating Aids levy into Value Added Tax (VAT), among a raft of other proposals aimed at broadening its domestic resource base.
Mr Nengoma also revealed that NAC had as of August this year collected $24,57 million Aids levy against a target of $22,4 million, nine percent more than last year’s total collections.
“This translates to a performance of 10 percent above the projection. Projected collections for this year have now been set at $36 million. It’s generally a good sign but like I said earlier, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to mobilise more internal resources,” he said.
NAC has collected a total of $144 million in Aids levy since the country adopted the multi-currency regime, with the levy contributing 86 percent of funding for the council.
