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Ask MTN to produce evidences of remittances, transactions since 2011

By Levinus Nwabughiogu

ABUJA-House of Representatives on Wednesday placed the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on full financial status enquiry from 2011 to 2015.

The House also threatened to deduct from source billions of Naira from the allocations of the Board in the case of non remittances in the period under review.

Similarly, the Parliament also asked management of Mobile Telecommunications Network, MTN, to furnish it with all evidences of tax remittances to government from 2011 to 2015.

House Committee on Finance made the demands through its chairman, Hon. James Faleke (APC, Lagos) at a session to scrutinize the tax remittances of the bodies to government accounts.

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Addressing Muftahu Bello who represented the JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, Falake said that the examination body did not make proper remittances of its profit to government from 2011 to 2015.

According to him, the records before the committee showed that, JAMB has failed to remit their profits within the period, claiming it ran at a loss.

Asking the JAMB official how the organisation got money to run its operations in the year 2015, Bello disclosed that, when the present JAMB management came on board, they started remitting funds without defaulting.

According to him, they even overpaid the amount due in 2017 by over a billion Naira.

But the committee eventually placed the body on status enquiry to determine the whereabouts of the profits.

Similarly, the committee also directed MTN to provide its various financial details to provide insight into its operations and remittances of revenues and other funds to the government.

The Chairman of the committee gave the orders while quizzing a team of the company’s management led by its Head of Finance, Olajide Yusuf.

Yesufu who presented the Financial statements and other documents in three volumes said that, MTN has been remitting revenues due to the government over the years.

He added that, MTN also collected VAT on behalf of the federal and state government which were remitted through the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

Explaining further, the MTN official said that, the records submitted to the committee have the details.

The Committee chairman, James Faleke argued that, MTN had generated billions of Naira  from its operations in Nigeria in 2011 alone which included N2.3 billion as connection fee from its various subscribers.

He therefore directed MTN to produce in their next appearance evidences of it quarterly returns to NCC, Management Accounts, Computation details, ledgers to cover post pioneer details, records of fixed assets both local and international, details of importation of equipment.

Others demands were dividends distribution schedules from inception to 2011, copies of audited accounts, annual tax returns, tax returns from 2007 to 2019 and soft copies of annual Ledgers for all accounts.