The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has denied allegations by the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), that past administrations didn't remit dividends paid to the Nigerian government by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural gas (NLNG), until the present administration of Muhammadu Buhari.
The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Lai Mohammed, had earlier on issued a statement urging the Federal Government to investigate past remittances of Company Income Tax / Education Tax as well as dividends paid to the Nigerian government by the NLNG, amidst allegations that the funds were not remitted into the Federation Account as they should have been.
In a swift response, Olisa Metuh, National Publicity Secretary of the PDP described the statement by Mr. Lai Mohammed as “misleading and outright falsehood.”
Metuh said the truth is that the NLNG had been on a 10-year tax haven until 2014. “Within this period, successive governments, right from President Olusegun Obasanjo never shared nor tampered with the cumulative dividends over the years,” he added.
Whatever taxes paid from the NLNG in the past went through the Federal Inland Revenue Services, FIRS, and recorded as part of the income of the Federal Government, Metuh said.
“It is imperative to note that by the end of the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan, NLNG dividends had risen to a cumulative $5.6billion and not a single cent was ever taken from the funds,”
Metuh added that although it is within the rights of the APC administration to spend the funds in any way deemed fit, it is cruel for the APC to inflict on his party, the PDP all such malicious falsehood while the current Presidency without the benefit of economic advisers and relevant statutory organs of government, unilaterally decided to deplete the funds, without thinking of the attendant future investments and financial obligations of Nigeria in the NLNG project
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