While tax inspectors hound small traders in the informal sector, they retreat when faced with the real titans of the economy. A staggering 334 billion FCFA in unpaid taxes, documented by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and Niger’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, stands as undeniable proof that the state has capitulated to private capital and large corporations. This mountain of unpaid debts is no accident—it is the direct result of institutional cowardice and the passive complicity of General Tiani’s government.

How the giants of capital enjoy privileged treatment

The injustice embedded in Niger’s tax system is absolute. Small and medium-sized businesses face abrupt closures and surprise audits over a few hundred thousand francs, while large entities bask in scandalous favoritism.

This brutally unfair asymmetry perfectly illustrates the failure of public enforcement when it comes to tackling major financial interests:

• Telecom giants: Mobile operators—particularly Airtel Niger and Zamani Telecom, the successor to Orange Niger—routinely accumulate tax disputes worth tens of billions of FCFA (more than 30 billion CFA francs) following audits by the Directorate General of Taxes. Yet opaque settlements and amicable arrangements almost always end up erasing or drastically reducing massive penalties owed to the public treasury.
• Mining and extractive industries: For decades, uranium extraction by Sopamin and subsidiaries of Orano (formerly Areva) benefited from excessive tax exemptions, leaving behind an abysmal fiscal shortfall under the pretext of preserving strategic investments.
• Major construction and import-export groups: Several multinationals and consortiums awarded public contracts continue to carry tens of billions of FCFA in uncleared tax debts on their books, with no seizure warrants or state contract suspensions ever seriously enforced.

A denial of authority dressed up as political rhetoric

Recovering even the collectable portion of these arrears would immediately inject between 134 and 168 billion FCFA into state coffers—equivalent to 0.4 to 0.6 percentage points of GDP. The inability to carry out these recoveries amounts to a collapse of public authority.

Niger’s government refuses to enforce tax law against the economic powers that defy it. As long as this double standard persists, any talk of sovereignty or fiscal citizenship will remain a complete sham, designed only to conceal the plundering of public finances by the economic oligarchy.