Secret Reporters No place to hide
Secret Reporters
It is rather disheartening when corporate bodies who are supposed to be the standard for the government of the day to follow have abandoned their social responsibilities and have become robbers of the Nigerian economy.
Chevron Nigeria which is a one of the leading multinational oil exploration companies has cunningly devised ways to continually defraud the Nigerian government by evading tax payment this online news medium can authoritatively report.
Mind blowing evidence made available to SecretReporters shows that there are massive differences between the general payroll data provided by Chevron Nigeria and that carried out on their audited and published financial statement, revealing that they have defrauded the Nigerian government up to the tune of more than 90billion naira in tax evasion from 2010 till date.
SecretReporters findings revealed that in 2011, Chevron Nigeria was supposed to remit the sum of N23,071,069,342.14 in tax to Delta State but fraudulently paid only N4,443,080,801.27 leaving a huge difference of N18,627,988,540.87. Again in 2013, they were supposed to pay the sum of N33,908,801,562.67 but as usual paid only N10,226,519,111.88 and evaded N23,682,282,450.79. This has become a yearly practice for them as they constantly evade tax of more than 65 percent of what they are supposed to pay to the Delta State up to the tune of more than 90billion naira.
Worthy of note is the fact that the above figures only applies to Delta State and there is a possibility that this corrupt practice also extends to every subsidiary, associate company and also to other regions within Nigeria where the villainous company operates.
To give Chevron Nigeria the benefit of doubt, requests have been made severally by the authorities in charge of tax monitoring and auditing for samples of 3rd party confirmations of salary payments and routine head count to enable them ascertain staff population especially that of Delta State at various times and also to provide an explanation of the massive difference of more than 90billion naira that exist on the database, but this has not been provided despite the non-disclosure agreement signed between the two parties. Chevron Nigeria we believe has refused to produce such information because it will eventually blow the cover of their corrupt practices.
Further investigations carried out by SecretReporters, revealed that there exists a possibility that the company does not have permanent staffs at the different regions where they operate as they claim, rather they move their personnel around from Delta State to these regions to carry out operations and hide this data against locations so as not to be pressured for tax payment in these regions.
To make matters worse, SecretReporters discovered that Chevron Nigeria has also aided and abated tax evasion of companies and contractors who supply relief materials, contract and other staff requirement to the company by refusing to provide its contractor execution and location list which will allow appropriate authorities expand the tax drag net to non-complaint companies or contractors.
This goes to show the level of impunity enjoyed by Chevron Nigeria as they callously defraud a country which gave them an opportunity to explore its natural resources thus proving their hypocritical nature as against their corporate social responsibilities in terms of road construction, provision of portable drinking water, educational facilities etc., which they are mandated to carry out in their host communities.
To carry out the tax evasion, SecretReporters gathered that Chevron Nigeria connived with tax boards, who give them fake tax clearance. In admitting to tax evasion by audit firms, the multi-billion dollar oil company secretly signed a letter of non disclosure with the tax audit firm in alliance with the tax agencies, to avoid the information leaking to the public domain.
