National Telescope national telescope newspaper
By Bose Adelakun
There was an uneasy calm on Monday during the screening of the former managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Architect Ahmed Dangiwa, when one of the Senators discovered that he hurriedly paid his three years taxes, five days before the screening.
The Senator representing Bayelsa Central, Konbowei Benson while quizzing the Ministerial-nominee asked why his tax clearance certificate reflected the same date for payment of 2020, 2021, and 2022 taxes.
He stated that such was an indication that the former FMBN boss was not a taxpayer.
Benson said, “I just want to ask a simple question to the nominee, looking at his tax clearance certificate, where it reads, 2020, 2021, and 2022, tax payment. What is obtainable elsewhere and usually what we do, is that taxes are paid as at when due.
“And at the bottom of every tax receipt, there is a date and that date is always reflected at the end of the tax certificate, but here all three tax payment years are bearing one particular date.
“That goes to mean that he was not a taxpayer and let him explain how he would have gotten to this point of paying all three years’ taxes in just the 28th of last month (July) 2023. And a Mortgage Bank gurumaraji so to say, one that has all the experience. Why will he only come here to tell us he paid all the taxes for three years in one day?
Reacting, the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, said that the tax certificate reflecting the same date was not an indication that it was paid on the same date.
He said, “If he was in the public service, and he does not have a need to collect his document that will not mean that his taxes were not been deducted. And if he had needed to collect them based on this nomination, he can collect them even for five years, three years, or ten years but that does not mean they were paid that day, I will let him answer the question by himself.”
However, while Dangiwa responded to other questions, he didn’t respond to Benson’s question before he was asked to take his bow out of the Senate.
