Thumbs up to EFCC’s concern over telecom, lottery industries

One notable case which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigated in 2019 was that on the MTN over alleged irregularities in the process of its listing on the bourse of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). In May 2019, the firm had listed by introduction, 20.4 billion ordinary shares at N90 on the NSE. In less than a week, the share price had risen to N131 as scarcity drives up its value. Many believed the company did not follow due process and had given insider information to some of its major shareholders. After further explanations from the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), MTN was let off the hook.

In January 2020, Premier lotto, Nigeria’s foremost lottery firm became the subject of a routine EFCC inquest to investigate alleged tax evasion. An Executive Director of the company, Segun Adebutu, who was incidentally at the Premier Lotto office on the day, was invited to the EFCC office only for questioning, after which the agency found no malpractices in the affairs of Premier Lotto and Segun Adebutu and summarily dismissed and closed the petition.

In its bid to sanitize the lottery industry, the EFCC went into a partnership with the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) in July 2019 with agreement for support in the areas of information sharing, intelligence gathering, enforcement and prosecution. Therefore, it became easier for the anti-graft agency to detect cases of foul play in the lottery industry reportedly worth about $70 billion. The partnership with the NLRC is already yielding some results as the EFCC recently announced the discovery of 35 illegal lottery business operators in the country.

EFCC’s scrutiny of the telecoms sector received a boost early in the years when the House of Representatives Committee on ICT revealed that commission would join the committee to investigate telecom providers over alleged non-remittance of the one per cent annual turnover to the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). According to the Reps committee, the telecom companies are owing up to N200 billion in pending remittance to NITDA for infrastructure provided.

These moves have checked the excesses of the telecoms operators and brought in more revenue for the government in the form of fines.

Lastly, thanks to the cooperation of some key lottery operators, the EFCC has made the industry more transparent and accountable.

 Adedayo Samson writes from Lagos

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