The House of Representatives has rejected the representatives of the Heads of Agencies’ appearance before it.
Ad Hoc Committee had invited the Heads of Agencies, to Investigate the Structure & Accountability of the Joint Venture Businesses and Production Sharing Contracts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation from 1990 to date.
It insisted that henceforth, it would only attend to heads of invited agencies.
The Chairman of the Committee, Abubakar Fulata, gave the warning at a resumed investigative hearing of the committee, in Abuja during an appearance of two officials of the Federal Inland Revenue Service. FIRS.
He also directed that the Chief Executive Officers of the various oil companies be invited to appear in person or face sanctions.
The officials, Mr Ogunyemilusi Gabriel and Bello Rasheed appeared before the committee, representing the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Muhammad Nani.
The committee however demanded the FIRS provided all tax records and other relevant documents on all the Joint Ventures and PSCs of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (now Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited) from 1990 to date.
The FIRS representatives responded that the relevant tax documents covering 2015 to 2021 had been submitted as demanded by the committee.
The explanation by the FIRS duo did not go down well with a member of the committee, Benjamin Kalu who said the archiving policy was restricting the mandate of the committee.
He said: “It is restricting. I say so because if you look at the request from the letter, which is from 1990, and you are starting at 2015 based on the policy, we are losing about 25 years of inquiry. They must present this number of years wherever the documents are. We need those documents for us to conduct a thorough investigation. Let no excuse be given.”
The representative responded that the FIRS has six years archiving policy, which was why the records from 1015 to 2021 were readily accessible
He added that the remaining documents would be made available before the committee’s next sitting as they were in the archives.
The Chairman of the Committee, Abubakar Fulata, mandated that the records be made available by Friday.
The documents demanded by the committee include the Summary of Petroleum Profit tax; Copies of tax returns filed by all JV ventures from 1990 to 2022; a summary of all remittances to the federation account of all tax revenues between 1990 to 2022; copies of correspondence between NNPC and FIRS tax remittances. Others are a summary of all remittances to the federation account of all tax revenues between 1990 to 2022; and certified true copies of the various tax revenues accounts maintained or supervised by FIRS on behalf of the federation.
The hearing was adjourned to next Tuesday.
Mercy Chukwudiebere
