Tax evasion: Arab contractors, Tower Aluminium, Stabilini, 112 others face probe

Senators and members of the House of Representatives under the auspices of Anti- Money Laundering and Cyber Security Coalition are working with the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission to prosecute about 115 tax offenders. The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Pensions, Senator Aloysius Etok, (PDP-Akwa Ibom), made this known at a press briefing at the National Assembly on Thursday. Etok said senators in the course of investigations, found that about “50 contracting firms working with Federal Ministry of Works operate with forged tax certificates”. Etok said companies that might come under the hammer of the National Assembly for tax evasion amounting to billions of naira included prominent road construction firm, Arab Contractors, Septa Energy, Tower Aluminium, B. Stabilini and 112 others. Etok disclosed that the National Assembly was pushing for the prosecution of companies with high rate of casualised workers and fraudulent expatriate quota practices by foreign construction and some oil and gas companies in the country. The lawmaker warned that if this trend of sustained evasion of taxes by companies continued, agencies like the Universal Basic Education Commission, Tertiary Education Trust Fund and Niger Delta Development Commission would fold up. According to him, the agencies depended on taxes for survival. The ICPC in a document submitted to the Senate, stated: “In view of the financial intelligence analysis carried out by the commission on the plethora of petitions received on issues bothering on Tax Clearance Certificates scam, investigation led to uncovering of tax evasion, nonpayment of Capital Gain Taxes, non remittance of Withholding Tax and Value Added Tax.”
The commission said the serial breach of the procurement process was with the collaboration of procurement officers. “Procurement is an area that has long been recognised as being particularly vulnerable to corruption because public procurement through government contracting represents a substantial percentage of the economy,” the ICPC submitted.