CBN Boss Emefiele, Finance Minister Summoned Over Tax Evasion By Expatriate

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele have been summoned by the Senate over tax evasion by expatriate. The Senate are investigating the illicit financial flows from the country.

Aside from Ahmed and Emefiele, the Senate also summoned the heads of various agencies such as Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, the Nigerian Export-Import Bank, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, among other relevant institutions.

The summon was initiated by the motion of the Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, Senator Gershom Bassey, as the Senate are in need of options to prevent expatriates from engaging in tax evasion - which is being investigated by the committees on Finance; Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes; Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions.

Bassey's motion was born out of the need to block revenue leaks, as he cited a 2014 Global Financial Integrity Report, which revealed that, “Nigeria lost a minimum of $140bn to illicit financial flows between 2000 and 2014, mainly to crude oil and commercial activities mis-pricing.” The Senate wants a framework on how the lost revenue can be repatriated to Nigeria.

The committees conducting the probe will also review the methods used by FIRS to trace, identify, prevent and sanction cross-border tax evasion and other illicit financial outflows, Punch reported.

Ahmed And Zainab Still Have Other Questions To Answer

The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, will be probed by the Senate committee on power over the disbursement of N2 trillion for the power sector. The summon comes a week after the National Assembly stated that it will likely cancel the privatisation agreement.

The Senate intends to enquire why the power supply in the country has not improved despite the sum of N2 trillion pumped into the power sector. Ahmed and the minister of power, Saleh Mamman, will face the committee which is led by Senator Gabriel Suswam.

Meanwhile, financial irregularities in the account of the CBN have put Emefiele under investigation with questions to answer.  The CBN boss, alongside that of the FIRS, NNPC had reportedly been issued audit queries by the Auditor-General of the Federation but they failed to respond to it, resulting in the House of Representatives summoning Emefiele, Kyari and Nami for questioning in the lower chamber. The summons was issued during an investigative hearing on the outstanding audit queries raised by the auditor-general.