N30trn alleged revenue scam: Senate to hand firms to EFCC for prosecution

Senate says plans have been concluded to hand companies found culpable in its investigation into alleged N30 trillion revenue scam in the import and export value chain to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) for prosecution.

The Chairman of the Joint Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff and Marine Transport, Sen. Hope Uzodinma, made this known in an interview with newsmen on  Wednesday.

He said those to be  handed over to the EFCC were those found to have  manipulated the foreign exchange procedure and those involved in money laundering, round tripping and  abuse of foreign exchange manual.

He said the committee would pass all established evidences  against the companies to the commission for immediate prosecution.

Uzodinma also said that  companies with established cases of infractions within the import, export value chain would be referred to the  Nigeria Customs Service for blacklisting.

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“We  have also established another department  of the investigation, which is abuse of fiscal policies from  Federal Ministry of Finance .

“Most of these companies that have applied and gotten approval as manufacturers of different products, assemblers  of various products but import finished goods in the name of CKD (Complete Knock-Down) will be charged for economic crime.

“We are going to follow up the prosecution  with all evidences available to us.

“As we are about  concluding our investigation on the  60 selected companies  being currently investigated, it is very clear that so much collectable revenues are still  hanging.

“These are monies that government would have used to ease governance and provide necessary  infrastructure and amenities to the citizenry.

“So, this committee will not sit back and allow the economy to crumble.  This is just 60 selected companies. We are visiting over 1000 companies,’’ he said.

The lawmaker said of the 60 companies in its first phase of investigation, the committee had been able to interact with 50 while 10 of the companies were on the run.

He vowed that the committee would ensure that those  companies were fished out by the relevant  security agencies.

On  funds recovered so far, Uzodinma said a significant  amount  of money had been returned by some companies.

He said“ many of those companies have paid  partially. I know that with the evidences we have against them we are confident  that these companies are now aware that we caught them.

“We cannot let go of what belongs to government.’’

On delay in concluding the ongoing investigation, the lawmaker assured that interrogating the remaining companies would be faster than the first 60.

He added that the committee took time to carry out preliminary investigation  because it needed to establish the necessary benchmark .

He stressed that “now that we have all that and the modus operandi has been established we will put it on auto pilot and it will be faster.’’