12th December 2022, Lagos, Nigeria: The festive season is a critical period for small businesses as a study from Meta’s latest Global State of Small business Report shows that 25% of SMB owners expect to make more than half of their annual revenue in the final months of the year.



However, the study observed that as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, the most significant challenge SMBs are facing now is the current state of the economy, supply chain disruption, inflation, threat of recession as well as production cost hikes. Due to the state of the economy, 16% of SMB owners within the past 6 months reduced the size of their workforce in Ghana while 5% of SMB owners in Nigeria have made similar adjustments to their workforce within the same timeframe.



While SMBs fight to find their footing during this post Covid era and navigate the current economic situation, Meta technologies have been instrumental in helping local businesses thrive and have their good ideas discovered.



In the lead up to the festive season, Meta has decided to launch the ‘Good Ideas Deserve To Be Found’ campaign to further build on the success of the campaign first launched in 2021. The campaign is aimed at spotlighting and celebrating local businesses with unique gifting ideas while encouraging holiday shoppers to support local businesses during this festive trading window.



“At Meta, we are committed to empowering SMBs with free skills and resources to help them build thriving businesses, develop meaningful connections, and unlock economic potentials so they can continue making a positive impact across the world.” Oluwasola Obagbemi, Corporate Communications Manager for Anglophone West Africa at Meta. She also said, “This festive season, we seek to spotlight and tell the stories of SMBs with unique gifting ideas and provide SMBs with access to tools, support, and solutions needed to grow thriving businesses while reinforcing our continued support of small businesses to ensure they have a voice and ensure the right customers find their good ideas.”



When surveyed, 49% of SMBs in Ghana reported using digital tools for advertising and 59% of SMBs in Nigeria reported generating at least 25% of their sales through digital channels in the past 30 days. It was also revealed that 46% of operational SMBs in Nigeria on the Facebook app reported having sold their goods or services to customers in other countries in the past 5 years. This compares to the global average of 30%. These discoveries have been made possible through the provision of digital tools for SMBs to ensure they are found by the right customers.



Through this campaign, Meta continues to support and give a voice to more than 200 million businesses using Meta technologies to ensure their good ideas are found.

Governments across Africa must begin to rethink governance, engender public confidence and trust in government by providing value for taxpayers’ money in line with their obligations under the social contract they have with citizens.

This was the call made to African Governments by the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Muhammad Nami at the Opening Ceremony of the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) 7th General Assembly, held in Lagos, Nigeria, Tuesday.

Muhammad Nami who made this call in his opening remarks to the 7th General Assembly, with the theme “Rethinking Revenue Strategies: The Human Face of Taxation,” added that it was imperative for African Tax Administrators to mobilise and speak with one voice as a regional bloc on global tax issues for their collective interests.

“The Fiscal social contract which hinges on the willingness of the citizens to pay tax in return for the provision of public service, is a clarion call on the government at all levels in Africa to rethink governance.

“In my view, if we must transform the tax system and enhance revenue collection in Africa, there is a need for the governance at all levels to engender public confidence and trust in government by providing value for taxpayers’ money”, Nami said.

Nami also stated that governments should reconsider how projects are reported in the public space, with such reports communicating to convey the idea that taxpayers’ money’s is used to fund infrastructural projects.

The Executive Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu who was represented by the Executive Chairman of Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) Mr. Hamzat Ayodele Subair, in the same vein said that there was the need to give taxation a human face, by implementing projects with taxpayers’ moneys that impact the lives of the citizens.

“There is no development without funding. We have amongst others, embarked on major transformational infrastructure projects cutting across transport, health, education, agriculture, technology amongst others.

“These major infrastructural interventions are designed to improve the quality of life of our citizens and re-engineer economic growth and development trajectory with improved productivity of our citizenry, which invariably improves our tax generating abilities.

“In a bid to save the human face of taxation, communication and feedback from the taxpayer is of paramount importance,” Mr. Subair noted.

Similarly, in his remarks, the Executive Secretary of the African Tax Administration Forum, Mr. Logan Wort noted that a critical component of rethinking Domestic Revenue Mobilization is to ensure that government has an impact on the lives of citizens.

“While we consider strategies or frameworks within which to enhance Domestic Resource Mobilization on the continent, we must always put into perspective its primary objective—being the impact on people’s lives as reflected by ATAF’s mandate in the new decade which is to serve the higher purpose of enabling and assisting African governments to mobilize their own domestic resources through taxation in order to build states that foster economic growth and social development in the interest and wellbeing of all their citizens.

“This mandate especially the latter part is one we all share in various capacities across our jurisdictions, and one that must drive our Domestic Resource Mobilization objectives”, Mr. Wort said.

The 7th ATAF General Assembly, which is being hosted by the FIRS, has in attendance tax administrators from 41 tax authorities in Africa. It is the first physical gathering of the forum since the covid-19 pandemic.

As part of measures to plug all revenue collection leakages the Benue State Government has pledged to strengthen revenue generated internally and provided operational vehicles for the Joint Taskforce to check illegal tax collection activities.

State Governor Samuel Ortom who presented the vehicles in Makurdi the State capital equally provided mobility for the Yam and Pig Farmers Associations of Nigeria.

Illegal tax operations have been a clog in the wheel of revenue generation in the State with prominent people regrettably involved.

In view of this, Governor Ortom provided logistics to the Revenue Board to strengthen its operations.

The Governor stated that his administration had cancelled collection of revenues by contractors and instead engaged Benue sons and daughters to carry out the duty, saying those paying should also ensure that they get certified government receipts as evidence of payment.

Ortom extended the same gesture to Pig Farmers Association Of Nigeria, PFAN and the Nigerian Association of Yam Farmers and Processors, NAYFPM.

He said pigs multiply very fast and could be a huge market globally, stressing also that as major yam farmers, processors and marketers in Nigeria and sub-saharan Africa, the association needed to be supported.

While Chairman of the Benue State Internal Revenue Service, BIRS, Andrew Ayabam pledged commitment to the task before him, Ronald Kparevzua, State Chairman of PFAN and Simon Irtwange, State Chairman of NAYFPM, all expressed appreciation to Governor Ortom for the vehicles, saying such would facilitate their activities within and outside the State.