Three companies in Udu and Uvwie Local Government Areas of Delta State have been sealed after they were found to have defaulted in remitting tax deductions to the tune of N42m to the Delta State Government.
According to the Delta State Board of Internal Revenue (DBIR), the companies are Shore Gas Limited, Lateejay Oil and Gas Limited, and three-star hotel, Mega Hilton Hotel in Effurun, which was shut down for the same offence in 2011.
The board explained that Shore Gas Limited is indebted to the tune of N2.4m, Lateejay Oil and Gas Limited N27.5m and Mega Hilton Hotel N11.4m. Asides the sealing up of the respective companies’ premises, some of their movable properties were confiscated and taken to court.
“Sometime in September 2013, the Delta State Board of Internal Revenue, under the executive chairman, Hon. Joel-Onowakpo Thomas, held a stakeholders’ meeting with tax payers in the state, where he appealed to them to settle their liabilities with the board on or before 25th September 2013, as the Board would take all legal steps to recover the monies owed the state government”, Legal Officer to the Chairman of DBIR, Mr. Clark Ekpebe recalled.
“A situation where the state government is owed several billions of naira is worrisome and incompatible with the present administration’s vision of Delta Beyond Oil, anchored mostly on internally generated revenue, which the board has a duty to enforce.
“Consequently, having exhausted every means for defaulters to see reason and settle their outstanding liabilities to no avail, the board is now embarking on enforcement exercise against defaulters with duly secured court orders to seal up and distrain their goods and chattels in settlement of the liabilities.”
Ekpebe urged companies still defaulting to pay up at tax collection banks, and assured the tax-paying public that as much as the board woukd not take undue advantage of any tax payer, it shall not collect a kobo less of what is due to the state government.
“This exercise is total against defaulters and there are no sacred cows as the law will take its course on all of them”, he added.
