Babs Omotowa, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria LNG Limited
The Senate on Thursday gave Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) one week to provide evidence of payment of taxes and dividends since the end of its tax holiday in 2009.
The assembly issued the directive in Abuja when the company briefed the Senate Committee on Gas and the Senate Committee on Niger Delta on developments in the area.
The one week directive was given by the Chairman of the Committee on Gas, Senator Bassey Akpan, when the Managing Director of NLNG, Mr Babs Omotowa, could not give details of the amount paid out so far as taxes and dividends.
Akpan also directed the company to provide details of an alleged payment of about eight billion dollars to Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as contained in a report by Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
He said that NNPC had stated in its budget for 2016 that there was no payment of dividends from NLNG.
Akpan said, “MD we need a documentary evidence of the taxes that you have paid and the dividends that you have paid from the end of your tax holiday till date.
“We must be able to substantiate the argument by NEITI that about eight billion dollars dividend has not been transferred to the Federation Account.
“The interest of Nigeria is reflected in this, a cumulative return on investment amounting to about 88 billion dollars you have remitted to NNPC but it has not been transferred to the Federation Account.
“This can be justified by the content of what you told us here that in 2015 alone you paid one billion dollars as dividends to NNPC.
“So, we need documentary evidence that this money has left your position to NNPC so we can take it up with NNPC immediately because according to NNPC, you have not paid …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
