NAHCO denies N778m fraud allegations

The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, has said that the Service is on track to achieve its N19.4tn revenue target for the year.

Adedeji stated this on Saturday in Lagos at a stakeholder engagement with the Senate and House Committee on Finance, organised by the Intergovernmental Relations Department of the Service with the theme, ‘Repositioning the FIRS to Achieve Its Mandate’.

“At the beginning of the year, we had a target of N19.4tn and from the beginning of the year, we set out our plans. And today we are in August, which we are almost three-quarters of the year. And I am saying that from the figure we are seeing by the special grace of Almighty God that we are on the path to make sure that we achieve N19.4tn. We are eight months gone already, and from what we’ve seen, achieving N19.4tn is achievable,” Adedeji noted.

Earlier in the year, FIRS set a revenue collection target of N19.4tn after surpassing its 2023 target by 107 per cent, which represents a 56.9 per cent increase from the previous year’s revenue and 67.91 per cent from the previous year’s target.

Adedeji also maintained that the service would be seeking the support of the National Assembly to enact a law on the crypto industry and bring up-to-date the Stamp Duty Act.

He said, “The plan first is to have the law that regulates it, and that is why you see that we are here with the legislature, which will be the base of charging. And that is done in any other place in the world when you have this innovation or system, so you just have to get ready for it because you can’t go away from it. So, we just have to plan to regulate it in such a way that it is not injurious to the economic development of Nigeria.”

The firm’s chairman, Seinde Fadeni’s, alleged involvement in the misappropriation of funds, including inflated estacodes, consultancy fees, and unaccounted cash withdrawals amounting to millions of naira, surfaced on social media.

The allegations, made by Mahdi Shehu on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), claim that Fadeni, along with other officials, paid themselves an inflated estacode of N137m.

Shehu also accused the NAHCO chairman of backdating documents and fraudulently approving the payment of N778m as consultancy fees to a non-existent contract.

“NAHCO chairman paid himself and other officials N137m inflated estacode and the same has been recovered by the EFCC. The same chairman backdated documents, inserted a proviso in the minutes of a meeting, used the same and fraudulently paid N778m as consultancy fees to a non-existing consultancy contract. Out of the N90bn Hajj subsidy, the chairman instructed the withdrawal of N3.7bn in cash, and the same is yet to be accounted for.

“All these are preliminaries. Full disclosures will reveal how pilgrims’ accommodation contracts were geometrically inflated, so also drugs, transportation, etc., almost all aspects of the hajj operations. When such shameful acts are committed in the process of discharging a religious pillar, by Muslims themselves who are given a trust, then Satan the devil has taken over their sense of commitment to God. They are simply industrial pretenders,” the post reads.

Furthermore, Shehu alleged that out of the N90bn Hajj subsidy for the year, the NAHCO chairman directed the withdrawal of N3.7bn in cash, which was yet to be accounted for.

The activist went on to claim that other aspects of the Hajj operations, such as pilgrims’ accommodations, drugs, and transportation, were massively inflated.

The company urged the public, customers, and shareholders to disregard the unfounded allegations, emphasising that NAHCO remained focused on delivering value and upholding the trust reposed in the board and management.

“NAHCO is committed to providing the highest standards of service and transparency in all its operations. The baseless claims circulating on social media are part of a smear campaign aimed at distracting us from our core mandate,” it said.

The aviation company reassured stakeholders of its commitment to ethical practices while encouraging the public to remain confident in the integrity of the organisation’s leadership.