Group petitions ICPC, accuses KWIRS of N325m fraud

By Mumini AbdulKareem
Anon-governmental organisation, Kwara Advancement Initiative (KAI) last week said it has uncovered N325m diverted from the accounts of the Kwara State Internal Revenue Services (KWIRS) disguised as payments for non existing projects done a consultant, Compumetric Solutions Limited.
But the chairman of the revenue service, Mrs Shade Omoniyi has denied the allegations adding that there is nothing to hide. She said the agency is ready to defend itself in case of a probe by ICPC.
KAI in a petition signed by Ibrahim Sulyman asked the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission to fish out the person(s) behind the firm for the purpose of transparency and accountability to the people of Kwara.
The group accused Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of running a secret government as citizens could no longer access information that were usually readily available on the revenue agency’s website.
According to the group in the report published by online news medium, SaharaReporters, “we are shocked to uncover so many financial frauds that have been carried out by top management officials of KWIRS in connivance with Ministry of Finance.
“On the 6th of April, 2020, we notice a payment of eighty four millions, two hundred and sixty four thousands, six hundred and eleven naira forty one kobo (#84,264,611.41) as gross payment of 15% collection fees on spendable collections to Compumetric Solutions Limited with voucher number 2020/0300. This payment voucher came with another net payment of seventy three millions, eight hundreds and thirty one thousands, eight hundred and fifty naira (#73,831,850.00) both as payments for the month of January, 2020
“Also on the 6th May, 2020, another payment of 15% collections fees on spendable collections was made to same company with voucher number 2020/0345 for another non existing project. This time, a gross sum of forty four millions, three hundred and sixteen thousand, three hundreds and twenty naira (N44,316,320.00) while N40,771,014.40 was the net amount paid according to that voucher. This brings the total amount paid in the two vouchers for month of January , 2020 to the tune of N114,602,864.40 (One hundred and fourteen million, six hundred and two thousand, eight hundred and sixty four naira and forty kobo).
“The above stated transactions have also cost the state government a statutory sum of N18,029,844.84 deducted for VAT, WHT and Developmental Levy expected to be paid to the FIRS and KWIRS.”
The group said it observed that there exist no agreement or any MOU communicated to the internal audit department of KWIRS, which will give clue on wither Compumetrics Solution Limited was due for payment of such magnitude for the service the company is having agreement with her for the monthly payment of 15% of spendable collections and 10% of non-spendable collections with effect from January, 2020
It added, “It is obvious that the two payments above did not only violates the extant law but also suggested sharp practices by agents of government in KWIRS and Ministry of Finance and this must be thoroughly investigated and anyone found culpable dealt with using the full weight of law. It is frightening that a contract of such magnitude did not even pass through the due process let alone have the endorsement of internal audit before fund are being disbursed by Kwara State Government.
“Also, it’s a public knowledge that the last collection platform working with KWIRS for the purpose of tax collections is the Amanda whose contract was terminated in January 2020 and since then, the KWIRS is in the process of building another collection platform through the Project Phoenix. It is therefore nauseating how such heavy payments were being made in advance on behalf of state government for services that is yet to be kickstart.
“For a company which is receiving heavy financial inflow from government without providing any services, it may be a pointer that some powerful people in government are employing private sectors apparatus to swindle the government by engaging in serious money laundering activities. Our organisation demands that the person(s) behind Compumetric Solution Limited must be unravelled for the purpose of transparency and accountability to the people of Kwara on whose behalves the government is acting.
“From the payment vouchers numbered 2020/0300 and that of 2020/0345, it is clear that the deductions rates of 5% and 7.5% in VAT with 5% and 10% federal WHT are not agreeing. For instance in one of the payments vouchers that was observed, the net amount said to have been paid on that voucher with code 2020/0345 stood at #40,771,014.40 which is against the amount that appeared on the said voucher. All these infractions and arithmetical errors does not reflect that this government has professionals capable of delivering the services expected from it by citizens”, the statement added.
But responding, KWIRS denied the alleged adding that it welcome the probe of its activities and accounts.
According its chairman, Shade Omoniyi, in a statement issued “…the agency welcomes the ICPC or any probe of its activities for the new leadership has nothing to hide or bother about other than its integrity and the general good of the Kwara public.”
She stated that the new leadership of KW-IRS inherited some consultants who supplied what was known as Amanda software but was not being used by the service anymore.
She said an initial assessment carried out amongst its staff revealed that that the solution by Amanda software was not efficient to the service.
“The outcome of the survey affirmed that the solution was not efficient. In an attempt to resolve this issue, the platform providers were invited on 11th October 2019 to defend this position and, after deliberations and their acceptance of all the issues raised, they promised to resolve all the issues within two months. But the issues kept recurring and new ones developed even after the two months had elapsed. The system finally collapsed and users were locked out on 21st December 2019. The Service was only able to salvage the data by the proactive action backups done in-house at the inception of this administration.”
According to her, the new leadership developed a technical request for proposal which was sent to five different platform providers, listing all the expected deliverables of the required platform for efficient running of the Service.
“There were submissions of proposals and assessments of same were carried out by an internal team comprising all the necessary stakeholders in the agency, including representatives of the audit department.
‘All the five firms made presentations to the team after which two were shortlisted for further clarifications and negotiations in line with global best practices. The KW-IRS team signed off at each milestone for the sake of due process.”
Mrs Omoniyi said that CSL was finally selected as the new consultants and a memorandum of understanding was duly signed and executed between both parties.
“The service has full records of this rigorous process. The CSL, a household name in Nigeria’s tax consultancy industry, works in various states of the federation. We wish to state that the CSL was engaged only after the former consultant’s contract was terminated.”
On the allegations that CSL was not rendering any service, the chairperson noted that the backend interface by the company has been deployed since January 2020, which involves the integration of the platform with all the payment platforms, solutions providers’ systems, and all the collecting banks platforms.
Speaking on the prudence of the current administration, she said the current consultants have only been paid N357 million since the inception of this administration compared to the payout of about N3.5 billion in one year to consultants under the previous administration.