The Nigerian Senate has disclosed plans to turn companies indicted in an alleged N30 trillion revenue scam over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Chairman of the Joint Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff and Marine Transport, Hope Uzodinma (PDP, Imo) made this disclosure on Wednesday while briefing journalists at the national assembly.
The investigated companies are accused of maneuvering the foreign exchange procedure in addition to money laundering, round tripping and abuse of foreign exchange manual.
He said the committee would pass all established evidences against the companies to the anti graft commission for immediate prosecution.
Mr. Uzodinma also noted that companies found with cases of infractions within the import, export value chain would be referred to the Nigeria Customs Service for blacklisting even a the committee would put all hands on deck to ensure immediate prosecution.
He said: “We have also established another department of the investigation, which is abuse of fiscal policies from Federal Ministry of Finance.
“Most of these companies that have applied and gotten approval as manufacturers of different products, assemblers of various products but import finished goods in the name of CKD (Complete Knock-Down) will be charged for economic crime.
“We are going to follow up the prosecution with all evidences available to us. As we are about concluding our investigation on the 60 selected companies being currently investigated, it is very clear that so much collectable revenues are still hanging.
“These are monies that government would have used to ease governance and provide necessary infrastructure and amenities to the citizenry. So, this committee will not sit back and allow the economy to crumble. This is just 60 selected companies.”
He further revealed that the committee would visit over 1000 companies in addition to the 60 companies that have been examined in the initial phase of investigation.
He however said 10 companies are dodging being probed.