THE Senate, yesterday, said arrangements had been concluded
to hand over companies found culpable in its investigation into alleged N30
trillion revenue scam in the import and export value chain to the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for prosecution...
Speaking with journalists
in Abuja, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff and
Marine Transport, Senator Hope Uzodinma (PDP, Imo West), said those to be
handed over to the EFCC were found to have manipulated the foreign exchange
procedure and also involved in money laundering, round tripping and abuse of
foreign exchange manual. Saraki Uzodinma, who noted that the committee would
pass all established evidences against the companies to the commission for
immediate prosecution, said companies with established cases of infractions
would be referred to the Nigeria Customs Service for blacklisting. He said: “We
have also established another department of the investigation, which is abuse
of fiscal policies from Federal Ministry of Finance. Most of these companies
that have applied and got approval as manufacturers of different products,
assemblers of various products but import finished goods in the name of CKD,
will be charged for economic crime. “We are going to follow up the prosecution
with all evidence available to us. As we are about concluding our investigation
on the 60 selected companies being currently investigated, it is very clear
that so much collectable revenues are still hanging, monies government would
have used to ease governance and provide necessary infrastructure and amenities
to the citizenry. On the funds recovered so far, Uzodinma noted that a
significant amount of money had been returned by some of the companies. “Many
of those companies have paid partially. I know that with the evidences we have
against them, we are confident that these companies are now aware that we
caught them. We cannot let go of what belongs to government,” he said.
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