ActionAid Nigeria has called on the Nigerian government to act on its promise to investigate high net-worth Nigerians and bodies operating offshore accounts and investing in tax havens.
It comes as an investigation Paper Paradise revealed more influential individuals dodging taxes by hiding funds away in tax havens, months after another investigation named some Nigerians using offshore tax shelters in the Panama Papers.
Nigeria’s finance minister Kemi Adeosun has famously said use of offshore accounts and tax shelters threaten developing economic.
ActionAid interim country director, Funmilayo Oyefusi, said, “At the release of Panama Papers, the federal government through Mrs. Adeosun had promised to investigate those mentioned in the exposés, unfortunately in spite of the fact that these individuals and corporates are known public figures and entities, the federal government is yet to come back to Nigerians on this promise to probe more into the issues.”
Oyefusi said Nigerian government has “obviously has not shown enough interest in this act of the rich which has resulted in extensive illicit financial flow from Nigeria estimated by the Mbeki-led High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa to be 24.5 trillion Naira (98.6 billion USD), currently equivalent of the country’s three year budget within a period of 18 years.
“No nation that loses such amount of fund, no matter how rich will be able to fund its own developmental needs, its education, health care, social infrastructure and address the issues that deepen inequality and poverty,” Oyefusi noted.
The constant naming of Nigerians among users of offshore tax havens is “not just a worrisome trend but an unfortunate act of betrayal of the country and their loyalty as expected in their pact with the people of the country who have invested trusts in them,” said the director.
The organisation called on Senate president Bukola Saraki to address Nigerians who put him in office.
“In decent environments, it behoves on senior public officials where indicted in such enormous cases to either clear their names, avoiding all ambiguities or step aside until they have been cleared of unwholesome or unpatriotic acts. It is the most decent thing to do, the organisation said.
“We call on the government to do more than the routine technical check of crosschecking tax declarations to dealing with the substantive fact of the existence and ownership of such offshore accounts and investment in tax havens and their implications for the nation’s economy as an act of sabotage,” it said.
