A Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) report may have revealed a proposed 50-year tax-waiver for companies seeking investment in the oil and gas sector.
A member of the board of Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Mrs. Faith Nwadishi told LEADERSHIP SUNDAY that the proposal was made a few weeks ago by the investment board of the Federal Government.
“What it means is that people can come into your country and do whatever they want and not pay tax and they are coming to use your resources. Last two weeks when we had the NEITI conference, a person from the investment board from Nigeria, made a presentation and part of the presentation was about the incentives they wanted to give to people who should come into Nigeria to prospect our solid minerals.
“The person proposed that we should give them a 5-year tax holiday but we know from practice that they just write a 5-year tax holiday on paper, but at the end of the day when you go through the contract, you find out they have been giving a lot of concession that could even lead to a 50-year tax holiday”, she claimed.
The NEITI board member in the interview also claimed that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC), the Accountant General’s Office, the Department of Petroleum Resources, (DPR) and other authorities are involved in revenue from oil and gas.
“So these are the things we don’t want to happen in Nigeria. The fact that you have a Central Bank that cannot give you accurately the track of how much is going in and how much is going out worsens matters.
“It is a disgrace for us, if our Central Bank does not have this capacity of how much has come from the oil and gas sector and how much the DPR brings; how much does the NNPC bring and how much did this other agency bring and also reconcile with those from the Accountant General, FIRS offices”.