The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) says it sealed
the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) corporate headquarters in Port
Harcourt, Rivers state, on Thursday over tax debt.
Muhammed Nami, FIRS chairman, said this in an interview with
NTA on Friday.
Although, Nami did not state the specific amount, he said
NDDC owes an “outstanding tax of N26 billion”.
This is not the first time the tax agency is carrying out
the act. In 2018, the Rivers Inland Revenue Service (RIRS) sealed off the NDDC
headquarters in the state due to withholding tax estimated at over N600
million.
After a year, the same was done over unpaid withholding tax
to the tune of N50 billion.
In April 2021, the FIRS directed all ministries, departments
and agencies (MDAs) to remit all outstanding tax liabilities to the service
within 60 days.
It said failure to do will lead to the deduction of
unremitted taxes from the budgetary allocation of the defaulting MDAs.
Nami said: “Tax debt is a priority all over the world. We’ve
sent a signal to ministries, departments and agencies of government that
business is not going to be usual in this country.
“You cannot keep government money and force the government,
whether at local, state and federal level, to continue to borrow…because these
monies (taxes) are used by the government to fund their budgetary requirement.
“We’ve discussed (FIRS and NDDC), even with some cabinet
members, and we’ve reached an agreement which will be made known to Nigerians
between now (Friday) and Monday.”
Meanwhile, Ibitoye Abosede, NDDC director of corporate
affairs, said the development was due to a gap in communication between NDDC
and the new management of FIRS.
“It is an ongoing
thing. In 2018, this same happened. It is unremitted withholding tax for some
years up to 2013. It is not a recent thing,” Abosede said.
“We have done reconciliation and they came with that amount.
In 2018, when they sealed the place, we raised an agreement with them to seek
ways to deduct at source from what the government is owing us so that we knock
it off.
“I remembered that in 2018, we paid N1.5bn but since that
2018 we haven’t had a board and it hampered the efforts of deducting it at
source. We don’t have regular subvention from the federal government.
“Efforts are ongoing to make sure the issues are resolved.
We have a new chairman in FIRS and we are reaching out to him to let him
understand our previous agreement.”
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