Photo credit: www.agora-mag.neNIGER – The Nigerien subsidiary of Orange is contemplating shutting down its operations in that country over a tax dispute with the government of Niger. According to African Confidential and other news sources, the government of Niger had hiked its taxes on the GSM company and was demanding more than 50% of the company’s revenue, a situation which Orange Niger termed as “unacceptable.”Over the years, Orange has been rapidly expanding its presence across Africa and made recent entries into the Liberian and Sierra Leonean markets, which marked a new step for the company which had mostly had a presence in francophone countries to enter an Anglophone market, besides Botswana. Despite this growth, the Nigerien experience has not been a good one for Orange. The government there increased tax brackets significantly and slapped on a tax bill of US 38 million bill, which the government says represented almost 50% of its turnover. The departure of Orange from Niger is expected to have a significant negative overall impact on the overall struggling Nigerien economy.

Source: Front Page Africa March 18, 2019 00:22 UTC