The Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, Friday, informed members of the Nigerian Senate that 50 out of the 156 major companies doing business with the Federal Ministry of Works are allegedly doing so with forged tax certificate.
This was disclosed by the chairman of the commission, Mr. Ekpo Nta, when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and Anti-Corruption, adding that his agency also discovered about 45,000 ghost workers in the Federal Ministry of Finance, and had succeeded in saving N100 billion for the Federal Government.
The ICPC boss also disclosed that the agency had closed down over 26 illegal degree awarding institutions in the country and was in the process of prosecuting their promoters.
According to Nta, some staff of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, and that of the Bureau for Public Procurement that were not doing the right thing had been jailed, adding that the management of all the 56 firms allegedly involved in forged tax certificates were currently being prosecuted for not paying the correct taxes to the Federal Government.
He accused the companies of denying tertiary institutions in the country of adequate funding since the Tertiary Education Funds are monies paid in form of taxes by companies.
He said: “We have gone into direct intervention with Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS and discovered that most of the big companies that do business for government have not been paying correct taxes or have been using forged documents.
“I can give you clear examples. Of 156 companies that did business with the Federal Ministry of Works, over 50 had forged tax certificates and we are prosecuting them, and that has now led to a total change in respect of persons who want to get involved in government business.
“You know that TEDFUND depends on monies that come from companies. So if you don’t pay company taxes, TEDFUND does not get the money they should get to improve the education sector and that is why we targeted taxation to help improve funding of these other sectors of the economy.
“Of course, you know what we have done in the Ministry of Finance, on the issue of ghost workers, where over 45,000 ghost workers were discovered, that has saved over a N100 billion.
“We have a robust relationship with the Federal Inland Revenue Service. We have actually jailed some of their staff that are not doing the right thing and of course we now work hand in hand with the Bureau for Public Procurement.
“So if anyone provides false statistics through bidding exercise they will refer you to us and that has now started cleaning out that sector.”(Daily Post)
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