Perhaps, let me first declare that I personally know businessman Lucky Ngubane as a young man who was living in poverty and in 1998, we attended Incwala at Ludzidzini Palace and just like me, he was wearing a torn khaki trouser(libhuluko lelidzabukile) leading “Boys Scouts”.
Indeed, he was my senior in the “Boys Scouts” and used to discipline me and others for misbehaving.
The businessman who from the Northern region is one of the few successful entrepreneurs I personally knew at a young age and was happy to see him prospering despite the challenges of doing business in this country.
This is a country where you might be crucified and destroyed just for buying a beautiful car, wearing quality clothes and affording to eat in a restaurant of your choice.
Even though we have reported some of Ngubane’s stories including failure to pay his workers salaries on time, I never thought the young businessman’s challenges will reach a point where the State will arrest him on allegations of owing over R100million tax.
This amount means Ngubane’s businesses were generating over R1.5billion turnover and this is unbelievable, Ngubane’s businesses have been financially struggling amid Government failure to pay suppliers on time.
The University of eSwatini(UNESWA) where Ngubane’s company was providing security is financially struggling and this, resulted to the State institution of higher learning struggling to pay suppliers including Ngubane’s company.
I am sharing this information because every-time and whenever journalists of this Swaziland News report a story about Ngubane particularly the failure to pay workers their salaries, I used to call him and asked why he was failing to pay his employees.
The problem in this country is that, once you invoice clients, the Eswatini Revenue Service(ERS) expects you to pay the Value Added Tax(VAT) even on unpaid invoices and should you delay, penalties are imposed and this, has resulted to the collapse of many businesses.
The amount demanded by the Revenue Authority from Ngubane’s companies suggests that, the businessman is a billionaire, there’s no way a company under the Small and Medium Enterprise(SME) could owe over R100million tax unless that company was generating billions as a turnover.
It should be noted that, what befell Ngubane is a clear indication of the struggle for businesspeople in this country particularly, those who “do business with Government”.
Tax evasion is a serious crime not only in eSwatini but globally and therefore, if Ngubane deliberately evaded tax, the law must take its course.
But in my analysis and unless convinced otherwise, it’s difficult to conclude that Ngubane’s companies were generating billions of Rands hence the over R100million tax bill.
This amount might have been the results of ridiculous penalties and, the Eswatini Revenue Authority must consider relaxing some of the penalties otherwise, more companies will close and the country’s tax base will struggle to produce revenue to sustain this country.
But in conclusion, it is important to state that, if Ngubane was literally collecting VAT without remitting same to the Revenue Authority, that would mean he did not only violated tax laws but, such amounts to fraud and/or misrepresentation.
VAT is a tax payment due to the State and SMEs must avoid collecting VAT without remmiting to the Eswatini Revenue Service(ERS) because doing so might result to ERS taking action against them. So if Ngubane was not subjected to penalties and this is just tax he collected from the consumers, then he must account
Businessman Lucky Ngubane(pic: FB).