Ifueko Omoigui Okauru, Executive Chairman, FIRS

 

The Federal Inland Revenue Service on Wednesday arrested the Executive Secretary of the Federal Capital Development Authority, Mr. Adamu Ismaila, for N28.2bn unremitted taxes.

Adamu was picked up in his office at about 12.03pm by an enforcement team from the FIRS led by the director in charge of Large Tax Department, Mr. Ajayi Bamidele.

The team said the arrest was a warning to other government ministries, departments and agencies to remit their taxes to the service.

Ismaila, who  was detained at the services’ Intelligence and Enforcement Department in Abuja,  admitted to the non-remittance of the amount.

He blamed the Treasury Department directly under the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed, for not remitting the said amount

He said, “I just assumed duty about three weeks ago. My Director of Finance and Administration came with a letter and told me its about remittance of taxes to the FIRS.

“And she told me that they did a reconciliation with your (FIRS) own staff in her office and everything was okay but that the only thing was the remittance point and that she has presented this matter to the treasury  for them to make this remittance.

 “We do not operate all our accounts, even our payments are made by treasury department for our contracts and even our salary and tax deductions.

“We have a central account in the FCT which is operated by the treasury department under the FCT minister’s office.”

The money included taxes collected by the FCT ministry on behalf of the FIRS from 2006 till date which have not been remitted to the federation account.

Also arrested and detained was another senior official of the FCDA whose identity as at the time of sending this report could not be ascertained.

However, the Director, Abuja Geographic Information System, Isa Jalo, could not be arrested as he allegedly fled when the enforcement team arrived.

The enforcement team  was also prevented from entering the main office of the director.

A  month  ago,  the  team arrested the chief executives of 31 hotels in Abuja for similar offence.

The arrests were  aimed at recovering the N170bn outstanding taxes by government and private organisations.

Following the establishment of the committee charged with the recovery of outstanding tax liabilities of the  FCTA and its agencies, it was learnt that a series of meetings were held and a number of decisions were taken.

Our correspondent learnt that the committee reviewed actions taken so far on the issues raised in their report and resolved to give the FCDA an ample opportunity to respond to a letter asking it to remit the said amount of money.

-Punch

Posted by admin on Dec 22 2011. Filed under Latest Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry