Buhari To Set Up Special Courts For Tax Evaders, Corrupt Officials
Buhari To Set Up
Special Courts For Tax
Evaders, Corrupt
Officials
The Chairman of the Anti- Money Laundering and Cyber Security Coalition at the National Assembly, Senator Aloysius Etok,
disclosed Thursday that
senators and members of the House of Representatives had got
the nod of the President- elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, to set up special courts to prosecute sundry tax evasion cases and official graft.
The courts, which would
be set up in the Federal
Capital Territory, he said, would deal strictly with corruption and tax evasion offences by companies, individuals and government officials.
He also said that the
courts would facilitate the trials of offenders as
opposed to regular courts that are hampered by repeated delays, so that the incoming administration could get fast results in its avowed war against corruption.
Etok expressed optimism that the courts, when
established would take off the burden of such cases from the regular courts and give them accelerated hearing.
“We are confident that
these courts will give
accelerated hearing to tax evasion cases and other cases bothering on corruption,” he said.
Etok disclosed that the
National Assembly wass
probing about 115 tax
offenders.
Besides, the lawmaker
also revealed that senators in the course of investigations found that about 50 contracting firms working with the Federal Ministry of Works operate with forged tax certificates.
Etok also disclosed that
the legislature was
pushing for the prosecution of companies with high rate of casualised workers and fraudulent expatriate quota practices.
The lawmaker warned that with sustained evasion of taxes by companies,
agencies like the
Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Niger Delta Development
Commission (NDDC),
would fold up, as the
agencies depend on taxes for survival.
It would be recalled that
General Buhari had said
that tackling corruption
was third on his agenda
after insecurity and
unemployment, adding
that he would kill it before it destroys Nigeria.
Buhari while receiving the Akwa Ibom chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday, May 7, 2015, in Abuja reaffirmed that Nigeria’s problem is more of corruption, and not ethnic or religious.
“So the point I want to
make here is that the
problem of Nigeria is not ethnic or religious, it is corruption. This is what we are fighting; that is why corruption is number three in my campaign.
“The first one is insecurity in the North-East and the Niger Delta where people are kidnapped and ransom
is being demanded which people cannot afford.
“The second one is
unemployment, 60 per
cent of Nigerians are
youths, most of them,
whether they went to
school or not, are
unemployed and that is
dangerous.
“So we have to get the
issue of the economy right to make sure the jobs are made available and we should try to kill corruption before
corruption kills Nigeria,”
Buhari had said.
