Regional Greed and Local Crimes: Financial Crimes and Implications on Tax: A Case Study of Zambia and Botswana

Abstract

This study examined the systematic erosion of Zambia’s tax base, which is often caused by the convergence of regional greed, which could be defined as illicit cross-border capital flight by multinational entities, and local crimes, more specifically, financial crimes that are often perpetrated by politically exposed persons. The study looked into the efficacy of Zambia’s current legal and institutional frameworks in how they combat these threats, asking why comprehensive statutes such as the Prohibition and Prevention of Money Laundering Act No.44 of 2010 and the Financial Intelligence Centre Act No.16 of 2020 have come short in closing the nation’s enforcement gap. By adopting a qualitative, comparative case study methodology, the research compared Zambia’s enforcement architecture to that of Botswana. The study analyses the operational mandates in each jurisdiction as well as the structural independence of key institutions, such as the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and Zambia Revenue Authority with Botswana’s Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS). The findings of this research recognized that Zambia possesses a robust de jure legislative framework and point out that its de facto application is mostly reactive as it is characterized by institutional silos and vulnerability to political interference. On the other hand, however, Botswana was identified as a country whose model is more proactive, which can be seen by its effective use of non conviction-based asset forfeiture, its mandated inter agency data sharing and the preventative approach to corruption auditing. This dissertation concluded that in order to effectively counter the double threats of regional greed and local crimes, Zambia must move towards institutional reform by adopting Botswana’s models of operational autonomy and a more integrated intelligence led tax enforcement, rather than enacting more legislation.