House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating operational activities of telecommunications equipment and service companies and vendors in Nigeria, yesterday opened investigations into allegations of non-remittances of five per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) on every recharge card sold to consumers by telecommunications service providers.
Ahmed Abu, who chaired the investigative public hearing, explained that all telecoms providers ought to be remitting the taxes to the Federal Government.
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Abu, however, noted that the two relevant regulatory agencies namely: the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) appear not to possess the facility for verifying the accurate VAT required from the telecoms firms.
To this end, the committee resolved to invite the management of FIRS, NCC and telecommunications companies, to appear before it on Wednesday next week, to clarify the issues.
Also invited are the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), National Office for Technology Acquisition Programme (NOTAP) and National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
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“We are concerned with the investigation of five per cent VAT that telecoms firms ought to be paying to the Federal Government.
“Is it being paid? To what extent? Who’s auditing their accounts? How many calls are being made? How much data are Nigerians using? How much data have bloggers been using and how much VAT have they been paying out of the data they are using,?” Abu queried.
Abu regretted though that despite repeated invitations to the helmsmen of the firms, to enable the committee to conclude its assignment this week, some of them have rather chose to send in representatives.
While addressing representatives of some of the companies who appeared before the Ad-hoc Committee, the lawmaker expressed displeasure over the delegation sent by most of the companies, whom he noted was unable to give a satisfactory response to the Committee’s inquiries.
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“This is unacceptable to us. It amounts to undermining the powers of the parliament for chief executives to personally fail to honour our invitations.
“We are not out to witch-hunt any of them, but to hear from them and see how their inputs can help us strengthen existing laws,” he said.
Worried by the development, he threatened that the Adhoc Committee would not hesitate to invoke relevant sections of the Constitution and issue warrants of arrest to compel them to appear before it if they fail to honour the invitation next week.
KEHINDE AKINTOLA, Abuja
