EFCC, ICPC, others accused
of concealing $16bn tax fraud
By LUCKY NWANKWERE, Abuja
Friday,
January 11, 2008
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Ribadu
Photo By: Sun Publishing Limited |
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As controversy over the decision to send the chairman of
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam
Nuhu Ribadu on a one-year course at the Nigerian Institute
for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, rages, a chartered
accountant has petitioned President Umaru Yar’Adua accusing
the EFCC of attempting to conceal a $16.8 billion fraud.
The petitioner, Mr. Fidelis Uzonwanne, a managing consultant
of ABZ Integrated Limited, Abuja, alleged that his organisation,
between 2003 and 2005 worked as a consultant to the EFCC during
which it uncovered $6,516,617 lost revenue through tax evasion
and an identified additional recoverable sum of $10.8 billion
being unremitted taxes and penalties by a multinational oil
company (name withheld).
Rather than act on the disclosure and bring the offending
oil firm to book, he said the Nuhu Ribadu-led EFCC developed
cold feet and became restless at the resolve to open up the
economy by de-mystifying the oil and gas industry.
He said what the country had lost and may still be losing
from the connivance of the anti-corruption agency when compared
with what some state governors being currently prosecuted
by the EFCC were accused of stealing “is only a tip
of the iceberg, a trickle in the mighty ocean.”
Uzonwanne, in the petition equally sent to the Attorney-General
of the Federation and Minister of Justice; the Minister of
Finance; the Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum (Upstream),
the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Services
(FIRS) also decried the role played by chief executives of
ICPC, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Nigerian Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) on the issue.
He further alleged that despite the petitions forwarded to
the offices of these agencies charged with the responsibility
of ensuring transparency in the economy and duly acknowledged,
they refused to make the findings of his organisation public.
He explained that the actions of FIRS and NEITI “do
not conform with President Yar’Adua’s policy of
zero tolerance for corruption” and called on FIRS to
be transparent enough to make available its findings on “our
report which identified a recoverable amount of $10.8 billion
from the oil company.”
Alleging a high level cover up of fraud in the oil sector
by EFCC, FIRS and NEITI, Uzonwanne pointed to an earlier promise
by NEITI to “publish all the information resulting from
these comprehensive financial, physical and process audits
of the Nigeria Extractive Industry”, adding, however,
that NEITI had refused to do the right thing.
The consequence of not bringing to book companies that default
in remitting taxes to the Federal Government, according to
him, was that “the oil companies and their collaborators
will continue to milk the country dry, and the fight against
corruption, as is presently being pursued, cannot yield the
desired result.”
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