$300m debt: Reps commence investigation of 12 Shipping lines

The House of Representatives on Thursday commenced a full investigation of 12 shipping companies over $300m debts being owed the Federal Government ‎as freight charges payable to the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency NIMASA.

Speaking at the commencement of the exercise in Abuja yesterday, the Chairman of the Committee, Hon Muhammad Umar Bago, who said that the probe which would be centred on alleged revenue leakages and round-tripping by the affected companies declared the Committee would not relent in the investigation until the companies paid up the debts to the coffers of the Federal Government.

Hon Bago who gave the CEOs of the affected companies up till Tuesday next week to appear in person before the Committee with all the relevant documents on their indebtedness in order to guide the Committee in its investigation vowed to engage the services of all the nation’s anti-graft Agencies to recover the debts as it appeared that the Companies were not ready to pay the huge sums of money they collected on behalf of the government dated back 2004.

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“This is fraud and wickedness on the ‎part of these companies haven collected such huge amounts of money on behalf of the Federal Government and refused to remit same to the coffers of the government and rather be trading with the same money, some even went to the extent of changing their names, we are not going allow this to continue, we have laws in this country which must be followed to the later.

“Right away, we are writing to the Corporate Affairs Commission to furnish to Committee the Directors of the affected companies, we will go after them, we will issued bench of warrant of arrest against them, we will also engage the services of our anti-graft agencies to get at them

“We need to recover every Kobo, the government can even utilise the recovered money running to millions of dollars to finance the nation’s Budget deficit,” he declared.

He identified some of the indebted companies and their debts to the government as follows: Gac Shipping Ltd $172m, Blue Sea Shipping Ltd $31.2m, Transoceanic Support Services $10m, Maesk Shipping $5.7m, Arine Nig Ltd $5.5m, Joe Eboje Int’l Agencies $3.5m

Others companies are Peak Shipping $2.58m, CMA CGM-DELMAS Nig Ltd $6.38m, Inchase Shipping Services $6.618m, Dabbo Marine Services $34.4m and Hull Blyth Shipping Ltd $3.6m totalling $300m.

However, one of the Companies Gac Shipping Ltd representative, Mr Rafiu Adesola said that what it owed the government $147m and not $172m as propped up by the Committee.