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A coalition of anti-graft agencies to go after oil firms owing Nigeria N2.65 trln

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President Muhammadu Buhari has granted approval to a coalition of anti-graft agencies to recover about N2.65 trillion unremitted funds by 77 oil companies operating in the country.

The agencies include; the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

This follows the revelations by the NEITI that 77 oil and gas companies operating in the country were owing Nigeria about N2.659 trillion as a result of unremitted petroleum profit tax, company income tax, education tax, value added tax, withholding tax, royalty and concession on rentals.

Speaking in Abuja on the status of the NEITI implementation in Nigeria, Executive Secretary of the organisation, Ogbonnaya Orji, stated that when converted to forex, government was being owed $6.48 billion at today’s official exchange rate of N410.35.

He noted that a breakdown of the figures showed that a total of $143.99 million was owed as petroleum profit taxes, $1.089 billion as company income taxes and $201.69 million as education tax.

According to him, others include $18.46 million and £972,000 as VAT, $23.91 million and £997,000 as withholding tax, $4.357 billion as royalty oil, $292.44 million as royalty gas, while $270.187 million and $41.86 million were unremitted gas flare penalties and concession rentals respectively.

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But the NFIU Director and Chief Executive Officer, Modibbo Tukur, who spoke when he visited the NEITI secretariat to officially sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two government organisations, noted that it was unacceptable that government would be owed such huge funds at a time it was borrowing to fund major projects around the country.

Tukur, who broke the news of the president’s nod, pointed out that the Minister of Finance had been directed by the President to oversee the process, including the setting up of a panel of the anti-corruption agencies to recover the unremitted funds.

“And that (NEITI’s hard work) has led to some kind of fruition because I briefed him (President Muhammadu Buhari) this morning and you may not be aware of it.

“This week, Mr. President has officially approved all the recoveries to be done in this area. The Minister of Finance has been directed to set up a recovery panel with the EFCC, NEITI and NFIU in it and even NAPIMS and all the others.

“So, we are heading to maximum transparency. And there will be consolidation of data coming from NEITI, from NFIU and other agencies and there will be very clear reconciliation with the players and those regulating the sector. So, no more hiding of our national revenues. We all know what we are going through. Nobody wants to see the government borrow,” he stated.

He noted that although he had done some work in the past with the organisation, this time around, the new NEITI management was raising the standard in the execution of EITI principles, traversing the entire country and getting results.

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