Bayelsa State Board of Internal Revenue has sealed the premises of Hilong Oil Services and Engineering Company Limited, an oil servicing company to Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), over unpaid taxes totalling N109,533,306.69.
It is the first time that the board is going hard on corporate tax defaulters in the state since the state government began a strong campaign to improve internally generated revenue following a fall in the price of crude oil and gas in the international market.
Bayelsa internally generated revenue had shot up to N1.13 billion in March this year according to figures announced by the state deputy governor, Gboribiogha John Jonah, at the last monthly transparency briefing.
Sealing the premises of the company at Elebele Light Industrial Estate on Wednesday, Robert Lokoson, director of compliance of the board, told journalists that the action would send a message to other firms that have been defaulting in their tax payments.
Lokoson stated: “The Bayelsa State Board of Internal Revenue having obtained the necessary court order hereby levy this distrain on the properties of Hilong Oil Services and Engineering Company Limited for a tax debt of N109,533,306.69 owed to Bayelsa State government. To recover that money that is why we have come this far.”
He explained that the firm had refused to respond to several correspondence on the issue and that if it still refused to begin negotiations after 14 days, the board would go back to court to institute a case.
According to Lokoson, the board was at the premises a few weeks ago without a court order over the same issue, but there was no Hilong representative to meet with them to discuss the matter with a view to resolving it.
He disclosed that they were trying to locate the current office address of the company, which had packed out of its office in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, since the premises along Elebele Road was just a life camp.
In the court order made available to BusinessDay, the presiding judge, Godwin Omukoro, said, “Leave be and is hereby granted the applicant and a warrant of distress issued to distrain the properties and or premises of the respondent for the purpose of securing the recovery of unpaid taxes under the personal Income Tax Act in the sum of N109,533,306.69.”
The court also ordered that the “distraining order shall subsist until further order or upon the respondent showing cause or otherwise taking steps to discharge its obligations to the applicant.”
Samuel Ese, Yenagoa
