BEVERLY HILLS, CA, November 13, (THEWILL) – The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts is to investigate allegations of evasion of taxes and non-remittances of taxes to the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) by the Nigeria Prison Services (NPS) running into millions of Naira by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation, AGF, in the Audit query in the financial year ended on December 31, 2011.
The committee headed by Hon. Solomon Adeola Olamilekan has set up a sub-committee led by Hon. Kehinde Odeneye to look into the allegations of tax evasion and non-remittance of taxes to the FIRS as at when due levelled against the NPS following the failure of the Comptroller General of the NPS, Alhaji Zakari Ibrahim, to convince the committee that the service paid the taxes, which included withholding tax from the contractors, capital projects and Pay As You Earn, PAYE, as at when due in line with the law of the land.
According to the Auditor’s queries against the NPS, on tax evasion and non-remittance which were in two parts, the organisation deducted over N76.43m as various taxes during the year under review but remitted N54.9m to the FIRS, leaving a balance N21.51m.
Similarly, in the year under review, the NPS was also accused of deducting N153.3m as various taxes and remitted only N22.71m, leaving an outstanding of N33m unremitted to the FIRS as required by the law.
In a related development, the committee cleared the House Committee on Power of the 6th Assembly on N31m allegedly collected from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, for a capacity training workshop, which the members never attended as contained in the Auditor’s query.
Olamilekan said that available evidences including photograph, air tickets and other receipts presented before the committee, it was convinced beyond all reasonable doubts that the members of the then power committee actually embarked on the trip contrary to the earlier claim that they never went for the training.
