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Niger Delta Fund Initiative: A-Ibom Govt Set to Prosecute Ten Oil Companies Over Tax
http://allafrica.com/stories/200308200478.html
August 20, 2003
Tommy Solomon, UyoAKWA IBOM State government says it has completed arrangement to prosecute 10 major oil servicing companies which it accused of deliberately refusing to pay oil revenue taxes to the state. The state Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Umana Okon Umana who released the list of the alleged defaulting companies to newsmen while briefing them in Uyo said government was compelled to take the action following the recalcitrant stand of the companies on the matter.
Umana who said government has forwarded the names of the erring companies to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission vowed that government would not relent until the affected companies were compelled to pay all their taxes and other indebtedness to Akwa Ibom State.
"Most of these firms hide under the cloak of unending litigation to deprive Akwa Ibom of its legitimate revenue. The attitude of these oil servicing companies is morally and legally indefensible", Umana asserted.
The Commissioner who estimated the unpaid taxes from oil revenues at millions of naira regretted that most of the defaulting companies rather chose to initiate unending legal tussle against the state and its people instead of settling what is due to the state, their host community.
"Presently, some of these indicted companies are gradually re-locating their operational bases outside Akwa Ibom State as part of measures to arrest the payment of their accumulated indebtedness. We shall continue to chase them wherever they go until we recover from them the huge tax revenues they owe Akwa Ibom", Umana stressed.
Vanguard investigations show that some of the defaulting oil companies had already been taken to the state's revenue court to no avail.
http://www.earthrights.net/nigeria/news/prosecution.html