The House of Representatives, on Tuesday, demanded all tax records and other relevant documents of all joint venture (JV) businesses and production sharing contracts (PSC) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from 1990 to date from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee probing the Joint Venture businesses during the period under review, Hon Abubakar Fulata gave the directive when the FIRS represented by Ogunyemilusi Gabriel and Bello Rasheed appeared before it on Tuesday during an investigative hearing.
This was as various oil companies invited by the Committee failed to show up for the investigative hearing.
He maintained that all the relevant Desk Officers are under obligation to talk on any issue that they are conversant with your mandate and with your approval so that you don’t say no, it was not me, so I cannot bear the responsibility for what was said.
Hon Fulata, however, noted that any persons who fail to comply with the laid down legislative procedures will be unveiled publicly.
While also requesting details of all foreign currency denominated including the pound sterling, dollars domiciled in foreign accounts, Hon Fulata who cited the example of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine as well as Iran, observed that Nigeria may be at risk of having its foreign currencies frozen in case of any dispute where the funds are domiciled.
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He said: “What happened if for example today, and tomorrow we have issues with England UK, US and they say the Nigerian account is frozen? For instance, American companies do not keep that foreign currency in Nigeria why are we keeping our foreign currency outside Nigeria?”
In his intervention, Hon Dachung Bagos who frowned at the non-presentation of relevant documents from 1990 said: “you can archive your payment vouchers and all those bulky documents but the bullet records of what you have done in your Agency for many years can be put in a sheet that, that one must not be destroyed.
“You can’t tell me that information of your agency from inception because of records of archiving you cannot get certain information. So, records keeping is different from archiving. So, we can’t be confused on those two, please take note of that.”
The FIRS’ representatives that the relevant tax documents demanded by the committee had been submitted but only for 2015 to 2021.
The documents requested for are; summary of petroleum profit tax; copies of tax returns filed by all JV ventures from 1990 to 2022; summary of all remittances to the federation account of all tax revenues between 1990 to 2022; copies of correspondence between NNPC and FIRS tax remittances; summary of all remittances to federation account of all tax revenues between 1990 to 2022; and certified true copies of the various tax revenues accounts maintained or supervised by FIRS on behalf of the federation.
The FIRS explained that the remaining records would be supplied eventually as they usually archive them.
He said the agency has a policy of archiving every six years, which was why the records from 1015 to 2021 were readily accessible when the committee demanded them.
In his remarks, Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon Benjamin Kalu, expressed worry that the archiving policy of the agency placed a restriction on the mandate of the committee.
“The intention of this Committee is to investigate and to bring out issues that Nigerians are concerned about. And if you caught us short based on your policy of archiving your documents we can’t take that as an answer to the Nigerian people who are going to be asking us what happened within these periods.
“Granted that you are obliging our request but you are restricting us by cutting down from 2015 downwards,” he noted.
He maintained that the “agency must present the documents whether in the open safe or being held by CBN or wherever those documents are, we need those documents in order to do a thorough investigation and I’m sure as a Nigerian that you are, you want us to do a thorough investigation as allowed by Section 88 and 89 which says any documents that we request for, without restricting us to any date that you are doing now is not helping us.
“So, we are requesting it from that 1990 and Mr Chairman let no excuse be giving to any of these people who are providing these documentations because it won’t allow us to do our investigation very well.”
To this end, Hon Fulata issued 72-hour ultimatum to the FIRS management to submit relevant documents for further legislative action.
He also ruled that the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami and the FIRS Executive Chairman, Mr Mohammed Nami, to appear before the Ad-hoc Committee next Tuesday to speak to the documents so submitted.
He also directed that the Chief Executives of the various oil companies invited appear in person or face sanctions next week Tuesday.
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