AFTER N500M IN NASARAWA, UBA IN ANOTHER MESSY N800M IGR SCANDAL IN NIGER STATE

By NGIJ team of Oluwasegun Abifarin and Olawale Abideen

While the smoke of the atrocities of some banks in the Internally Generated Revenue, IGR manipulation in Nasarawa state is still stuffing the nose of an alarmed Nigerian public, a petition has gone to the EFCC that the United Bank of Africa, UBA is in a pool of another 800 million IGR controversy in Niger state.

Before the misadventure in Niger State, the same bank has been drenched in similar mud in Nasarawa State where forensic investigation assessed that it withheld about N506 million due to the state.

According to the document received by the Nigerian Guild of Investigative Journalists, NGIJ, Niger State governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani-Bello in a letter dated 23/07/2015 from the office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Malam Zakari Abubakar appointed Ori Adeyemo, a Lagos based forensic expert as consultants to investigate deductions of unremitted 10% Withholding Tax on Credit Interest by some banks operating in the state.

However, an instruction was passed by the then Finance Ministry Permanent Secretary to its supervised Niger State Board of Internal Revenue of Adeyemo’s full appointments to cover all the banks in Niger State.

At the end the forensic investigation, the total refundable by the UBA stood at 804.62 million out of the N4.6 billion due to the state by 12 banks and one Micro Finance institution.

In his petition to the EFCC, obtained by the NIGJ team. Adeyemo alleged he was reliably informed that the Board had given clean bill of health and letters of non-indebtedness to the said compromised concerned banks.

The consultant also alleged that the Board “went ahead to try and sell-out this assessment to persons unknown so far who relied on our reports in lowering the assessment to N102, 457,738.40 sum for reasons unknown after unbridled reports mutilation and suspected behind-the-scene negotiations all in a bid to deprive the Niger State Government of its hard-earned Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).”

He added that the “total commissions and/or dues fraudulently lost thereto and/or withheld by the Niger State Board of Internal Revenue is N910,422,825.32, which “we hereby request that the EFCC use its wide-ranging investigative powers to help recover for us.”

The petition also included a compact disk (CD) detailing all completed jobs in intellectual properties as so far executed by the consultant for the Niger State Government enabling it to demand for an additional but unpaid N732,143,601.52 commission sum to wit:

PARTICULARS:

EMAIL DATE	BANK	START	END	AMOUNT
29/07/2019	Stanbic-IBTC Bank Plc.	31/07/2011	30/06/2017	46,544,471.96
19/07/2019	Skye Bank Plc.	29/05/1999	31/08/2017	789,653,459.14
09/09/2019	Diamond Bank Plc.	29/05/1999	26/09/2017	556,916,153.43
22/07/2019	Zenith Bank Plc.	29/05/1999	31/07/2017	359,206,378.82
11/07/2019	Guaranty Trust Bank Plc.	31/03/2004	31/12/2016	21,013,850.30
09/09/2019	Ecobank Nig. Ltd.	29/05/1999	28/09/2017	189,812,363.06
08/04/2019	Access Bank Plc.	29/05/1999	31/12/2017	556,801,021.88
02/08/2019	United Bank for Africa Plc.	29/05/1999	31/12/2017	804,625,167.29
04/03/2019	Heritage Bank Plc.	29/05/1999	31/12/2017	363,544,906.82
08/07/2019	Unity Bank Plc.	29/05/1999	31/12/2017	409,050,337.56
24/05/2019	Keystone Bank Ltd.	29/05/1999	31/12/2017	262,638,397.39
31/12/2018	Wema Bank Plc.	29/05/1999	31/12/2017	192,963,839.30
28/03/2019	Aso Savings & Loans Plc.	29/05/1999	31/12/2017	95,760,456.36
Total Refundable By Banks				4,648,530,803.31
Payments Made inclusive of 5% Value-Added-Tax (VAT)				4,880,957,343.48
15% Commission Due To Forensic Consulting inclusive of 5% VAT				732,143,601.52

“Consequently, in the light of the mutual agreement that have with the Niger State Government, we are entitled to 15% of the established N1,131,931,579.67 liability assessment per completed assignments for N178,279,223.80 sum, which we hereby demand that EFCC should assist us to collect from the Niger State Board of Internal Revenue and its collaborators”, Adeyemo said.